So if I have sounded grumpy the last couple of days, well, I have been! The weather forecast that I check religiously for the 2 weeks prior to coming out here kept saying that it would be in the 60’s so I left all of my cold Seattle April at Safeco gear at home. It has been much colder here and the press box is completely open with no heat. The wind and rain blows straight in and it has been miserable. Add to that a very disappointing media dining situation and that adds up to a cranky reporter. The only saving grace is that there was a Starbucks in the mall adjoining the hotel.

Actually Baltimore is a little better than I remembered. There is a decent downtown area with some good shops and restaurants. The National Aquarium is right across the street but since they don’t have belugas I haven’t been. My favorite jewelry shop Amaryllis is found here. The store features a great selection of hand made jewelry and I rarely leave empty handed. Nightlife is supposedly good (I spend my nights at a ballpark talking on the radio) with Canton overtaking Fells Point as the place to be. Little Italy is great, I am sure you have heard the broadcasters talking about Sabatinos. We get there a lot because it is open late. I am a big fan of the baked rigatoni. If you go, make sure to ask about the specials. For all night dining, the Blue Moon in Fells Point stays open and serves breakfast overnight on the weekends. The biscuits are out of this world as is the crab benedict. Everything is served with attitude. Finally on the food front (didn’t make it to a crab place this time) any bakery in Little Italy is great for cannoli and espresso. We definitely need more Italian bakeries in Seattle.

Okay, on to the team. It has not been fun the last couple of days. How bout it for the best laid plans? Your hitters aren’t hitting which is not unusual in the early going, but all of a sudden your number 1 is your number 3, your ace in training is acting like your ace (it’s an absolute crime that he is not 2-0 right now) your closer is out, your number five is now your number 5 and possibly your closer (he did not throw his bullpen today so I suspect he will be available), your team scores only on the home runs (probably because seemingly every base runner has been erased on the base paths) and oh yeah, Jones and Sherrill are doing just fine here.

Thank God it is early otherwise I might be panicked by now. Crazy stuff. On the good side, Felix has stepped up big time, and done so in an intelligent manner. I refused to believe that he had told them he was not 100% after the 8th until he himself told us that was the case. He explained that although he was throwing on regular rest, he had thrown his bullpen as if he were going to pitch today. There is no sense in pushing it on his second start of the season. Almost a year ago to the day Felix threw his gem in Boston. A complete game 111 pitch shut out on a very cold day in Beantown. His next start he lasted only a third of an inning then was shut down for a month. We don’t need to see that happen this year. I asked if that was something he had thought of and he said yes, but wasn’t too worried about it because he thought his pitch count was lower. Right or wrong ( he thought he had thrown 117 in Boston), it is so important that he was thinking of protecting himself and his teams win rather than picking up the complete game shut out. That may have been the most important moment of the game yesterday.

So here we are now trying to salvage something out of this series. I asked the skipper if there was anything new on JJ and he said that he believed that JJ would begin throwing late this week. If that is the case, maybe he will be back sooner than first expected. That indeed would be some much needed good news.