I realized how weird opening day could be when Tuffy Rhodes hit three homers for the Cubs about ten years ago on opening day. Rhodes didn’t hit many more homers in his big league career, in fact he ended up playing in Japan where he still hits them out.

On opening day, everyone thought he would be the next big star in the majors. Not to be.

Monday Corey Patterson, a light hitting outfielder for the Cubs hit two homers and drove in seven runs as the Cubs pasted the Mets 15-2.

I wonder how many homers Patterson will hit this year? Any guesses? Is he another Tuffy Rhodes?

Let’s see what else happened as baseball got back into action. Click below.The Mets struggled mightily in the field. Tom Glavine had trouble with the wind as it altered the course of his 83 MPH pitches. It was a day for power pitchers in Shea with Kerry Wood’s 95 MPH heater having no trouble on its flight to the plate. Juan Cruz struck out six in his two innings of relief, overpowering the Mets with his fastball.

The Mets couldn’t catch the ball on a difficult day in the field. The Cubs had a game plan as they took Glavine the other way repeatedly. It worked and the soft tossing lefty was gone within four innings.

The Big Unit was irked that his manager came out to talk with him while he was preparing to pitch to Brian Jordan. Johnson knew Fred McGriff was on deck (Brenly’s message), lost his concentration and gave up a game breaking homer to jordan.

The lesson: Don’t bug the Big Unit during the inning even if you are the manager.

More importantly Hideo Nomo shut out the Diamondbacks.

Greg Maddux got rocked by the Expos. Not a good sign as another soft tosser bit the dust yesterday. Maybe it takes longer for the finesse guys to hit their stride.

Kevin Millwoood did his thing against the Marlins. The two top hitters in the Phillies line up went 0-11, Jimmy Rollins and Placido Palanco. The Phils still scored 8 runs showing hitting later in the order. Good sign for Philadelphia.

The closer by committee got off to a horrid start for the Red Sox. Truthfully, Alan Embree was just throwing the ball up there without a real plan, then Chad Fox couldn’t put the ball past Carl Crawford despite having him down in the count. The 21 year old Crawford hit a game winning homer in the ninth to spoil Bill Jameses statistical strategy, to wit: that a group of pitchers can close games.

You know what Bill, you may be right even though you have never been in a major league lockerroom, but you better get the right pitchers or else all your stats won’t matter.

Embree and Fox didn’t have it yesterday. I’ll still take one guy to get the job done, that is if you have the one guy, which the Red sox obviously don’t.

Kris Benson was terrific shutting down the Reds. Matt Morris struggles against Milwaukee. I’m not sure which was the biggest surprise.

Derek Jeter separated his shoulder in a tag play at third base. A glaring example of why you shouldn’t slide head first into the catchers shin guards. I guess Jeter didn’t realize that catcher Ken Huckaby would hustle down to third and cover the unoccupied base when Jeter tried to go from first to third on a slow roller to the left side.

He’ll be out for a while, but it won’t hurt the Yankees who are loaded at every position. By the way, how old did you say Jose Contreras is? The Cuban defector looks like he is about 38, but he brings it to the plate.

Notables pitching today:

Tim Hudson whose last two playoff outings left much to be desired.

Freddy Garcia who had a terrible second half.

With the weather in Oakland expected to be in the low 50’s at best, this one may be low scoring.

Chan Ho park. Can he hold the Angels close enough to let his mates comfortably beat up on Mickey Callaway?

Tim Wakefield takes his knuckler indoors against a spring phenom Victor Zambrano. Wakefield probably will need Bobby Howry at the end of this one instaed of Fox and Embree.

The Giants love to see the Padres. They can thank the helpless Pads for their world series appearance last season. San Diego never beats the Giants and yesterday it was business as usual. Ray Durham may be the most dynamic lead off hitter in baseball today, including Ichiro.

Can Odalis Perez slow the Arizona bats? More importantly will Curt Schilling do what Randy Johnson couldn’t do yesterday? Keep Bob Brenly in the dugout while he is pitching.

Remember you don’t pick the winners of any games until the peaches are on the trees.

Too much happens every day, I’m just going to watch for now.