We have a few burning baseball questions, and we're sure you do, too. Drop us a quick one or two and, if we like 'em enough, we'll try to answer them here every week during the season. CNNSI.com's John Donovan takes a poke at these three this week ...
1
Is Pedro Martinez OK?
Pedro Martinez was yanked Monday at Fenway Park after allowing eight runs off nine hits in three innings.
AP
Well, sheesh, did you see him pitch in Boston's opener on Monday? Heck, no, he's not OK. If that's OK, the Red Sox are in a major-league world of hurt. The question isn't if he is OK. The question is whether the Red Sox ace is actually hurt.
Martinez insists there is no pain in his beat-up throwing shoulder -- "Please don't mention pain," he said after Monday's game -- but don't pitchers always say that? He was knocked out of the game Monday in the fourth inning after allowing eight runs, seven of them earned, on nine hits. He walked two hitters and hit two others. It was an outing hardly befitting a guy with a lifetime 2.66 ERA. Martinez didn't give up seven earned runs in five starts last April.
After the opener, which the Blue Jays won 12-11, Toronto manager Buck Martinez told Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe that Pedro was throwing and releasing the ball from several different positions. "It looked," the skipper said, "like he was trying to find a place where it doesn't hurt."
Martinez, the pitcher, has insisted that he is fine. He says it will take him some time to find out how to throw strikes after adding somewhere around 14 pounds of muscle in his chest and shoulders this offseason. That's something he had to do to avoid the injury problems he's had in the past.
Any hopes that Boston has of unseating the Yankees atop the American League East begin with a healthy Martinez. He missed 18 games last season (and didn't win at all after May) because of his sore shoulder. If it's aching again, or even if it's not but he continues to pitch like he did Monday, the Yankees could have another waltz to the pennant.
2
OK. Let me add this up. Says here that, at his current pace, Barry Bonds will smack 324 homers this season. That about right?
Barry Bonds has 57 multihomer games, including 10 last season in his record-setting campaign of 73 home runs.
AP
C'mon, now. Nobody likes a smartass inquisitor. There's no way Bonds hits 324 home runs this season, even at this pace. No way he plays all 162 games.
But, yeah, the point is well taken. After two home runs in San Francisco's opener Tuesday, Bonds seems on his way to another monster year. Nobody's expecting it to be as monstrous as 2001, when he set the standard for monstrous years with his 73 home runs (73 home runs ... 73 home runs ... man, that still sounds stupidly outrageous), his 177 walks, his .863 slugging percentage.
But, heck, two homers (one off Dodgers ace Kevin Brown), a single and five RBIs in four trips to the plate ... it's a nice little start.
Bonds spent much of the offseason working out with buddy Gary Sheffield of the Atlanta Braves. The two are fitness freaks, Bonds showing Sheffield the way. Both are starting to get a feel for where they could end up in baseball history. Bonds, hands down, is a Hall of Famer. (Dodgers manager Jim Tracy, dazzled by him in the opener, suggested he's arguably the greatest player ever). Sheffield, with a few good years, could be on his way to Cooperstown.
But back to Bonds. Another record-setting year? For now, hold off on the Bonds Tracker and don't start worrying about 70-something homers. Last year, everything went just right. Two years in a row? We're going out on a limb here, but ... it's just not gonna happen.
3
Now that spring training is over and we have all that ridiculous optimism out of the way, which teams can we completely drop from our pennant radar screens?
Pirates starter Ron Villone was tagged for four runs in five innings in a loss to the Mets on Opening Day.
AP
Pittsburgh. Yeah, we'll go way out on that same Bonds limb and say the Pirates, most definitely, will not win the National League Central. Or any other division, for that matter.
Yeah, we're baseball experts here at Burning Questions.
We also think that Kansas City has no shot in the American League Central, nor do Detroit, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Montreal or Colorado in their respective divisions.
Let's get to the real questions here: What so-called contender is being overly optimistic? Which pennant pretender is pretending the most?
Well, Boston comes to mind, especially if Martinez is shelved for any length of time. Boston's No. 2 guy is John Burkett, who has some injury problems already (he's missed his first start) and is 37 years old. Rickey Henderson, who is a lot older than that, will lead off a lot of games. Henderson hasn't hit above .238 since 1999. Oh, and the Red Sox play in the same division as the Yankees.
Florida. Good, young pitching and a decent hitter or two. Not even close to the level of the New York Mets (whose pitching is suspect enough) or Atlanta Braves (as long as Greg Maddux's sore butt, now considered a balky nerve in his back, comes along).
Anaheim and Texas. Decent pitching for the Angels, awesome hitting for the Rangers, but not enough on the other side of their respective ledgers to hang with Oakland and Seattle in the American League West.
And Cleveland. Bartolo Colon won't pitch like he did in the opener every time out. And the Indians need him to with that offense. The White Sox and even the small-revenue Twins are better all-around teams.
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Pirates starter 
