Opening Day 2006

Here we go. Opening Day 2006. As bad as the Royals have been the past two seasons, I still love Opening Day. Yeah, I love the optimism inherent in the first day of the season. And yeah, I love the fact that we've improved our ball club. But, whether we play well or play poorly, baseball season is upon us and that's a good thing.

How much have we improved? Nobody really knows. With Mientkiewicz and Grudzielanek, we've improved our defense a little. Angel Berroa is still a poor fielding shortstop and Mark Teahen isn't the sure-handed player you'd like to see on the hot corner. Emil Brown, who moves from right to left field, leaves a lot to be desired in the outfield, but Reggie Sanders is an improvement in right.

Our offense is much improved over last season. Grud looks to be a good fit in the two hole. A healthy Sweeney in the three hole is always a beautiful sight. And he finally has a legitimate clean up hitter behind him in Sanders. With Brown and Mientkiewicz hitting in the five or six hole, we hopefully won't have to see Teahen, or Berroa, or Buck hitting in the upper two thirds of the line up. With added experience, a little more power in Sanders, and hopefully a couple of better base runners, I expect us to score more runs this season.

My biggest concern is our starting rotation. Elarton and Mays are not number one or two starters. Affeldt and Bautista seem to be on track coming out of spring training. But who knows who long it will be before Hernandez is in decent enough shape to pitch six or seven innings. Thankfully, Redman is due back soon. Greinke on the 60-day DL and if someone goes down, we'll probably need to put Wood in the rotation. I just can't see this rotation matching up well with other teams.

We'll be better than the pitiful 56-106 record we put up last year. My prediction: 71-91. My hope: 81-81. My dream…well, I won't even tell you what that is. But hey, a guy can dream, can't he? Especially on Opening Day.