Its time for a few exhibition games

Or at least it should be: interleague play starts today in Major League Baseball. I'm currently watching the start of Cleveland versus Pittsburgh.

As an ardent traditionalist I'll come right out and report that I'm agin' the idea of playing across the leagues, at least in the protracted form it currently appears. Two three-game series a year, maybe one three-gamer and one four-gamer against a "natural rival" (NYY/NYM, LAD/LAA, Cubs/ChiSox, Pirates/Phillies, Orioles/Nationals, Rangers/Astros, that sort of thing). I see this year that the "Battle of Canada" has officially ended: last year they still had Toronto vs. MontrealWashington, and this year have the exciting matchup of... Toronto Blue Jays versus the Colorado Rockies. (I guess Colorado is short a natural rival too, unless you consider perhaps the Seattle Mariners who currently are with San Diego -- San Fran isn't a half bad matchup for the Mariners, but Oakland already has the rights to that series covered). Florida/Tampa, Minnesota/WisconsinMilwaukee, Cincinatti/Detroit, Boston/Philly, Cards/Royals, and Braves/Arizona are the other games tonight.

Hmm, Sizemore just got a home run off of...Zach Duke's third pitch. Wow, good thing I held off one day on the trade I accepted this morning in one of my leagues, swapping Victor Martinez and C.C. Sabathia for Jorge Posada, Jermaine Dye, and Zach Duke. So if Sabathia can pitch a solid game while Duke falters, I can get one last quality start out of this.

Likewise in the top of the first, Victor Martinez just hit an RBI double, another quality performance that I still get a piece out of.