Batter Up!
Five Things You Need To Know Right Now

Though baseball season’s upon us, the sport is still kinda lost in the shuffle that is NBA playoff excitement and all the talk surrounding the NFL draft. If you happen to be one of those who hasn’t found the time to get acquainted with the 2007 MLB season, don’t sweat it. That’s precisely why I’m up at 2:30 AM typing you this cheat sheet. Here are the five early-season truths you need to know to be up to snuff around the water cooler for the next month or so…

Defending Chomps- Just seven months removed from thumping the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals hardly fluttered out the starting blocks. 1-3 when I last looked at the standings, the Cards were embarrassed by the explosive New York Mets (in NY’s 3-game sweep, St. Louis was outscored 20-2) to open the new year. With slugger Albert Pujols and youngster Chris Duncan in the lineup, the Cardinals can’t help but improve. Nevertheless, to keep up with the Chicago Cubs and Mets in the NL, those two are going to need lots of help at the plate.

Size Does Matter- In the first three games of the season, Cleveland centerfielder Grady Sizemore homered three times. The way the 24-year-old Seattle native’s swinging the bat right now, had the Indians not been snowed out on Friday, he would’ve slugged a fourth. (Keeping it real, he did hit 28 long ones last year.) The largely-unknown Sizemore warrants your attention and so, too, do stars-in-the-making Milwaukee’s Bill Hall, L.A. Angel Casey Kotchman and Atlanta’s Brian McCann.

There’s no “I” in “Sleeper”- The bandwagons for the Angels, Mets, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are already pretty full for the season. But just because the talking heads on TV and the columnists in your morning paper say one thing doesn’t mean a quiet, going-about-its-business team like, say, the Brewers, Cincinnati Reds or even the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (Don’t laugh. This young team is loaded with talent!) can’t make things interesting in May and June. Folks chuckled at Detroit at the beginning of last season, too, and they wound up in the World Series.

Special K- This past offseason the BoSox threw $103 million at Japanese pitcher Daisuke “Dice K” Matsuzaka’s feet. From the way the young man’s pitched in spring training and his first regular season game (seven innings, one run, 10 strikeouts), it appears to be money well spent. If Dice K keeps bewildering AL opposition like this –and if Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett keep up their fireworks display from the hill- Red Sox Nation will be thinking postseason by the Fourth of July.

Bonds Away- No. 735… Let the countdown commence. After going deep in the second game of the young season, Barry Bonds moved one step closer to eclipsing the most respected mark in baseball lore—Hank Aaron’s 755 home runs. Shaking off opposing pitchers’ sliders, unending media scrutiny and the fact he’s only hit 31 dingers the past two seasons, Bonds looks recharged in left field and reinvigorated at the plate. 736, 737, 738 and all the rest can’t be far away.