day two:

the indians, of course, did not play today. what intrigued me was a stat shown on baseball tonight showing that day #2 starters collectively pitched much better than opening day starters. so while perusing through today's box scores, i graded all of today's starting pitchers. remember zito's disappointing B- and peavy's A+ count towards the opening day crowd grade, which i did not do yesterday. i do remember felix hernandez and ben sheets getting A++'s, c.c. & aaron harang getting A's, and jose contreras getting an F. i can also recall many C-D's.

so, today's A+'s:
ian snell. despite getting a no decision, he helped the pirates collect win number 2 by going 6 innings, striking out a career high 11 , while giving up 2 runs on hits. two runs would usually result in an A, but for the pirates starting the season 2-0, i make an exception.

jason jennings: his counterpart. in his first start in an astros uni, he allows 1 run on 5 hits in 6 innings, striking out 7. once again, an iffy A+, but doing so in his first game in houston tops him on top. it makes him 'feel' like an astro.

orlando hernandez. he gave up as many runs as he had strikeouts. 0. he got the W against the world series champs for his seven innings pitched.

the A's (not the team):
the boof'ster:
he recieved a no decision also, but only gave up 2 runs in 6 innings pitched. leaving with the game tied after 6, you know minnesota and their strong 'pen is probably going to win. and they did.

jared washburn got the only B+. seattle gets their second W.

daniel cabrera (on my fantasy team), scott olsen, and kip wells received B's.
cabrera got the L, as he gave up 3 runs in 7 innings while striking out 9, but walking 4.
olsen only gave up 2 hits in 5-1/3 innings pitched, but gave up 2 runs because he walked 5. the more i think about it, his grade should drop.
kip also got the L, but pitched bearably decent as the number 2 pitcher who wouldn't be on many teams.

there were no C+'s.

randy wolf and chris cap received C's. chris's grade drops when you think about how he could be a number 1 pitcher on many clubs.

joe blanton gets a C- for giving up 4 runs in 6 innings.

rich hill gets a D+. his numbers weren't much different than blanton's.