Today’s the best day of the year. It’s something I look forward to for months. In all honesty, it should be a national holiday, and I should get the day off from work. (Granted, I could just take the day off from work, but where’s the fun in that?)

It’s Major League Baseball’s opening day!

Today’s the start of a 162 game season, and although I won’t watch all 162, I’ll watch any games I can. (That being said, is the MLB Fan Cave still a thing? I wish I could have applied for that.) I get notifications from MLB At Bat and ESPN for all games, so I’ll be connected that way.

The Red Sox are opening on the road against the Rays for a four-game series Thursday to Sunday and then head to the Marlins for two games before heading to Boston for a Thursday, Saturday, Sunday series against the Rays.

If that’s not a messed up first two-week schedule, I don’t know what is.

1. The first two series the Sox play are at the two worst stadiums in the league: the ugly Trop and the extremely tacky Marlins stadium. Ugh.
2. What’s up with the Thursday, Saturday, Sunday series at home? Why do they have Friday off?
   • I know in the past when opening days used to be in the first week in April, there would be opening day, a day-off, and then games would resume. But during the third series?

I went to one Sox game last season with two girls from the ice cream shop, and I’m hoping to go back for another one.

The Sox had a successful spring training, so I’m hoping some of that streak will continue into the regular season. Chris “Snippy” Sale is our opening day pitcher, and he’s just about our only decent starting pitcher. The rest of our rotation looks… okay; I’m just hoping for consistency from them.

(In another post coming soon, I’ll explain why I call Sale “Snippy”.)

I’m excited to get to watch my boys play again, and it’ll be interesting to see how the AL East shapes up. The Yankees may think they have the upper hand with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Mike Stanton, but just because you have two power hitters doesn’t mean you can magically win the division. You need pitching, too, and their pitching doesn’t look all that good. So we’ll see.

I doubt the Jays will do anything, who knows about the Rays, and same with the O’s. I think this season will look a lot like last season: the Sox and Yanks running away with the division while the other three teams barely finish under .500. I’m just hoping that the Sox will end up on the top of the division again.

If I was feeling really ambitious, I could break out the numbers and start comparing analytics, but I’d rather just keep yelling about players and teams—which will be extremely common this season. Besides, that’s much more fun than looking at WAR and OBP, right?