Baseball's Back, Baby

Before I start my Opening Day post, let me preface this by saying that I would have like to have titled the blog with a different "B" word instead of baby, namely something referring to dogs of the fairer sex. I felt it would be inappropriate and am trying to distance myself from that sort of low brow humor for a few cheap laughs. *Farts*

Opening Day for everyone except the Orioles and the Rays is in the books. What did we learn? Who stood out? What can I reasonably expect from Jason Heyward moving forward (4 RBI a night is the answer)? These questions would best be asked in a series of bullet points because I am too lazy at 8:50 a.m. to come up with coherent transitions between paragraphs. And away we go:

• Carlos Zambrano sucks. I picked him up in the bench draft in my first auction league, which I considered a steal. Then he goes and gives up eight runs in 1.1 innings, good for an ERA of 54.00 and a WHIP of 6.00. He's still never had an ERA over 4 in any season of his career, but he's not the same guy who struck out 200 batters two season in a row with sub-3.5 ERAs and sub-1.3 WHIPs. I miss that guy.
• In the same game, the man to which I've devoted the past two months of my life, Jason Heyward, pretty much took everyone's unreasonably high expectations of him and kicked them up about a bazillion notches, using his first major league swing to take the afore-mentioned Zambrano deep. And it wasn't just kinda deep. The kid (he's only 50 days older than I, which means most of you are older than he) is a machine, built for baseball and for decimating my fantasy opponents.
• BREAKING NEWS: Albert Pujols is still incredible. He hit two home runs yesterday, which isn't really news, since it's not even the first Opening Day he's hit multiple home runs. There's a reason I haven't really mentioned him much in these blogs. It's because he's the clear-cut best player in baseball, both real-life and fantasy, and there is no news to report other than how awesome he is (or if he's injured). This might be the last time you read his name in this space, in fact.
• Tim Lincecum put a lot of rumors to bed in his start yesterday. 7 innings, 4 hits, no walks, 7 Ks, no runs, no doubts. He's the best pitcher in baseball until something else happens (an injury or ineffectiveness).
• Shaun Marcum was probably the second-biggest story of Opening Day for fantasy purposes. After a promising 2008 campaign, his career appeared derailed after Tommy John surgery. Now, I'm aware that many people have come back and been wildly successful after the surgery, but it was difficult for me to see that happening with Marcum considering he hadn't even had a full season of effectiveness before his injury. He proved me wrong however, not allowing a baserunner for 19 outs, finishing 7 full innings, allowing three runs, two hits, a walk and six Ks. The end line wasn't as pretty as his performance, but anyway who paid a small amount of money on him, or used a very late pick in a draft, was ecstatic.
• Some more quick notes: After what seemed like a fluky season last year (21 homers, 10 steals in only 82 games), Garrett Jones started his 2010 with two homers and three RBI...Scott Baker (on both of my teams) continued his trend of starting slowly, lasting only 4.2 innings, giving up 4 runs and looked really out-of-control, which is bad, considering his success is predicated entirely on pinpoint control...Ian Kinsler, Lance Berkman, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Ted Lilly, Huston Street, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and Cliff Lee all started the season on the DL. Fun for guys who owns them, I don't have any of them.