MLB: Washington Nationals' Opening Day Marred by Dark Clouds and Cold Bats

After an exciting winter and encouraging spring, the Washington Nationals could not wait for Opening Day 2011 to arrive.

After an uneventful 2-0 loss at the hands of the Atlanta Braves though, the day turned out to be one the Nats will want to forget. The day was marred by umpire Tim Welke's amoeba-like strike zone, frigid temperatures and ominous dark clouds.

But it's Opening Day, so let's forget about the bad and look for the silver lining.

Despite the slippery playing surface, the Nats' D was superb; let's just say the field was the only thing that was slick Thursday. Replacing Adam Dunn and the platoons of poor defenders at second and right with Adam LaRoche, Danny Espinosa and Jayson Werth is like replacing your old tube TV with a brand new HDTV—you don't really appreciate how bad the old set is until you take a gander at the new one.

It's only day one, but I can confidently say the Nationals have the best defensive infield in the league, and I'm not sure if it's even close. Opposing teams are going to have to smoke it to get the ball to the outfield. LaRoche will save a ton of errors for Ian Desmond, whose arm is as accurate as a colonial musket.

Speaking of Desmond, he's not a lead-off hitter, and his four useless at-bats did nothing but confirm this. Can we just move Espinosa to the top of the order now and save ourselves a month of pretending this will work? If I have to see Werth batting without anyone on base again, I'm going to throw the remote through the TV, which may not be bad thing because FP Santegelo would no longer be able to bore me to death.

But let's stick with the positives, such as Livan Hernandez still getting it done with a mid-80s fastball and 60 mph curveballs, one of which had Dan Uggla flailing at it like he was blindfolded.

As for the offense, which couldn't keep up with ole Livo, it will get better when they actually start playing in weather fit for baseball, get a competent ump calling balls/strikes and when they move Espinosa to the lead-off spot. 

Until then, we'll have to settle for the silver lining.

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