Open-Minded Frenchy??

The game last night was a fun one to watch, despite the rookie pitcher Acosta who threw it away in the 9th.

Bobby probably has Nam Flashback-like memories of pulling pitchers after last year — he didn’t look too happy when he had to take Acosta out in the 9th.

Hitting looked good, relief pitching was excellent (until Acosta and the random rook who followed), and Huddy was, well, pretty good. Not bad, I guess. He still looks shaky with his location, and he gave up some hits and two runs. I don’t know — he wasn’t bad, but he looked an awful lot like the Huddy of last season, which makes me nervous.

Last night was the first Sports South broadcast of the season, and our first look at Jon Sciambi, the new announcer who will be working with Joe. To be honest, I found myself tuning them both out. Not intentionally, but the broadcast didn’t really captivate me. I did like their interviews with Frenchy, Chipper and Heap from the dugout. Hopefully these broadcasts will liven up a little bit throughout the season — one of my favorite broadcast moments of last season was Joe screaming, with complete sincerity, “OH MY GOD, LOOK AT THOSE COOKIES!” during a shot of the Devil Rays’ Lexus-Level type buffet area, which featured a giant tray of chocolate chip cookies. I also love Cynical Joe, who was of course constantly present after June last season, and in fact morphed into Angry Joe toward the end of the year. I actually thought he was going to physically attack Don Sutton a few times.

During the dugout interview with Frenchy, I almost fell off the couch when he said — TWICE — that he watched tapes of Heap hitting in the offseason! No wonder he’s been consistent during spring training. I’m really impressed that he would swallow his pride and do that, and especially admit to it, good job, Frenchy. Chipper said that his foot was fine, he could have stayed in the game Monday but didn’t want to risk it, and also mentioned that he works on his swing with his dad, which is interesting. Heap of course had them both beat, bringing up his engagement and saying he “found the right woman,” then blaming himself for being bad luck when the Astros got the lead during his interview. Aw, Heap, don’t be so hard on yourself.

In other news, they cut poor, beleaguered Joey yesterday. Hopefully he’ll come back later this season with some confidence, or at least looking less like he thinks the other players are giant spiders who want to eat him.