Mods can we have this as a new thread for this year's MLB season please?

Can you direct posters from rlthis threadrl for us all? Thanks

So the Red Sox start the season with a win against the Yankees last night. To quote a Toronto Journo, "As a catcher, Jorge Posada is a fine DH".

Blue Jays get underway today with a tough series in Texas. We've been hitting pretty well coming into the season (especially our 1-2-3 spots) so lets hope we can keep it going. Very nervous for Marcum, making his first big league start since August 2008.

Can't wait for today's match. Not confident with Harang on the mound (I believe he ties a Reds record for consecutive opening day starts too) because he's struggled the last two years. I'm actually more hopeful of the back three of our rotation with Arroyo (our best pitcher), Bailey (fingers crossed on a breakthrough year) and Leake (first round pick from last year going straight into the big leagues without going to the minor leagues first).

Looking forward this year to seeing Strasburg, Heywood and hopefully Champman. Lots of talk about these three, particularly the first two. Strasburg has been described as the best pitching prospect ever and Heywood is a 6'6'' five tool player. As for Chapman, he is the Reds big gamble. A 100mph Cy Young contender if the gamble pays off.

A few pictures from Spring Training...

The worst contract in MLB takes a big swing


Doc in a strange uniform


Doc pitches to Overbay


Werth sans beard


Brian Tallet


AJ Burnett


Jose Bautista taking AJ deep

Good start for the Red Sox, i must admit watching the game when they were 5-1 down, i thought it was going to be one of those days. Beckett was poor (glad he has signed a new 4 year deal though), but thankfully the Sox have a good bullpen. Hopefully going to be a good season but as usual the Red Sox have to put you through it.

Bit of a heartbreaker for the Jays yesterday and Shaun Marcum in particular, as they lose in 5-4, giving up 2 in the 9th. I had little confidence in our ability to close a game before the season started, I have even less now. On the plus side was the performance of Marcum, which was outstanding considering the length of time he's been out. Also, very encouraging to see Vernon Wells go 3-4 with 1 HR and 3 RBIs.

Less than a week to the home opener. Can't wait.

As the new season has started here are my predictions for the season

AL East.......AL Central.........AL West.....AL Wildcard
Yankees.......White Sox........Rangers.......Angels

AL Champ
Yankees

NL East........NL Central.......NL West.......NL Wildcard
Phillies..........Cards............D'Backs.........Braves

NL Champ
Braves

World Series Champ
Yankees

How come the Yanks and Sox always seems like a game 7?

Have that Papelbon you gimp.

Hard to see anyone stopping the dam yankees unfortunately....

Rays beat the Orioles 4-3

3 HRs in 2 games, steady on Vernon. I guess he's pretty desperate to shake that "Worst Contact In Baseball" tag he thoroughly earned over the last two seasons.

What a bizarre game last night. Blues Jays had 4 hits, 3 of them HRs, 2 of which were solo shots. They were 0 for 9 with RISP and stranded 11 on base. Yet they manged to score 7 runs!

This was mostly thanks to some dreadful pitching by the Rangers and a lot of patience at the plate in which the Jays got 10 BB and 2 HBP. Their 2 runs in the 4th came via HBP, walk, fielding error, walk, walk YIKES!

That said, apart from giving up back 2 back homers, Tallet pitched surprisingly well and definitely deserved the victory. Still, looking at the freaky stats you can't help but think WTF?

The Jays also have yet to single this season. I guess it being Texas, they're all just swinging for the fences.

Afternoon game today and thank fook for the Justin.tv iPhone app. It's the absolute dogs doodahs.

I'm still pretty stunned that we staged a comeback in the 9th inning. I can't remember seeing that all last season.

VW on track for 200+ homers in 2010. If he got close he might almost be earning that fat contract.

Considering the huge question mark over our starting rotation without Doc, the thing that pleases me most so far is the 3 quality starts we've had.

Biggest concern is Snider, who looked completely clueless at the plate yesterday. He's too good for minor league pitching, he's shown that in the last 2 seasons. But he's struggling to handle major league pitchers. I'm not sure dropping him to AAA will achieve much but what do you do if this continues?

Brilliant game tonight at The Great American Ball Park. Good solid start from Bailey followed by three innnings with one hit in relief by Owings before Drew Stubbs belts our first grand slam of the year (we managed two in the whole of 2009) at the bottom of the 8th to go from 1-3 to 5-3.

Gets to the top of the ninth and Lee hits a homer in the second at bat of the inning making it 5-4. Cordero ends up loading the bases with two outs but he pulls it off with a grounder to him.

Excellent stuff. The Reds commentary team started light-heartedly calling them "The Cardiac Kids" after these two opening wins lol. Interesting stat mentioned though that we were something like 67-1 last year when we were leading in the 8th inning. It's part of the reason why I'm excited about the Reds this year. Our starting rotation has so much potential to click and with the improvement in team spirit, brought about by two come from behind wins, gives me some hope that we might just break into a winning season. A winning season would be a brilliant return for us this year.

Seven road games after this series against the Cubs. I think we can take two off the cubs but not confident about four at the Marlins with three at Pittsburgh after that. Tricky start but I honestly think we can compete this time. Our hitting phobia is being replaced by a similarly low hitting side but we seem to be scoring at the right times now. Votto and Hernandez have started well and I'll take timely hitting over prolific at the moment.