Miami Marlins: The 150 Day Countdown to Opening Day 2013

Mar 31, 2013; Houston, TX, USA; General view of the Opening Day logo on a base before a game between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers at Minute Maid Park. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Starting November 2, 2012 on my twitter I began a countdown to Opening day. My followers seemed to get a kick out of it; some started making their own, some followers had a good laugh at some of the things I wrote, and others thought I was crazy. Some even agreed with what I wrote and cheered me on. In total I counted down 150 days using Marlins predictions, player number count downs, plenty of my own superstition, and my pre-game rituals. In this article I’m mainly going to talk about how well my predictions for the Opening Day game went, but I will briefly talk about other things I wrote for the countdown as well. When you are 150 days away from baseball you have a lot of time to come up with some entertaining stuff.

Let me start with the players’ numbers. Let’s say there are 27 days until opening day. I would tweet Giancarlo Stanton days until opening day and show a picture of him in his jersey with the number. Pretty easy, but here is where it gets more fun as I continued my countdown. I’m a very superstition person when it comes to baseball; for example, I would say there’s 115 days until I start my winning jersey superstition or 103 days until I sleep on my lucky pillow. We also can’t forget my pregame rituals. For example, 121 days until I start looking at my marlins schedule on my frig on a daily bases or 110 days until my dog puts on her Marlins jersey. I had fun writing these things down and showing the twitter world an inside into my baseball life. That took up 76 of the 150 days in my countdown. The other 74 days were my game predictions.

It was so much fun coming up with predictions for what the Marlins and Nationals were going to do this Opening Day game. Now that the game is over I can see what I got right and how far outside I was in some of my predictions…..

1 day until the Marlins prove my predictions for the opening game. Well let’s see how many I got right.

6 days until Marlins beat Nationals 6-3. Not even close. Marlins lose 0-2.

7 days until Giancarlo finishes the game 4-4. More like 1-4. I’m not doing so well so far.

9 days until Adeiny Hechavarria finishes 4-5 with a homer shy of the cycle. Ha he would have had to hit the ball for that to happen.

12 days until Juan Pierre Finish 3-5. Okay he started off nice with a single in the first but then he went downhill from there.

13 days until Rob Brantly goes 1-4 but that one hit gives us the lead. 0-3, not even a single hit.

14 days until Mike Dunn gets his first hold of the season. He gave us a great 8th but not for a hold.

15 days until Mike Redmond makes a call to the bull pen in the 8^th, Ricky Nolasco goes 7 innings with 8 K  0 BB 2 ER. I was 1 inning off, 3 strike outs off, 2 BB off, but at least I got the 2 ER right. Fail!

 18 days until Juan Pierre doubles down the triple base line. No double down the line for you.

21 days until Stephen Strasburg get yanked in the 5th inning. One could have hoped right?

22 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 8th batter. Try again.

25 days until Juan Pierre scores a run off a Giancarlo Home Run. Giancarlo had to hit a HR for this to happen. (read day 147)

26 days until Juan Pierre prove he still gots it.  Good day, but not great. Another time buddy.

28 days until Ricky Nolasco goes 1-2. *cough* 0-2 *cough*

30 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 7th batter. Getting closer.

32 days until Bryce Harper goes 0-4. *sigh* 2-4 with 2 HR *sigh*

35 days until Strasburg goes 0-2 with 2 Ks. 0-0 with 2 sac bunts.

38 days until Adam LaRoche goes 1-4. This one turned out better then I predicted, 0-3. Still a wrong in my column though.

41 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 6 batter. Almost there.

42 days until Adeiny Hechavarria makes a diving play at short. I don’t think the ball was hit to him once this game.

45 days until Juan Pierre shows he’s a great leader. Too early to tell.

46 days until Rob Brantly gets the game leading RBI. We would actually have to score for this to happen.

47 days until Polanco proves he still gots it. Nice playing at 3rd but terrible base running. Another one wrong for me.

49 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 5th batter. Yes! I finally got one right!

56 days until ESPN shows two Marlins in the top 10. Not in the Marlins favor.

77 days until Mike Redmond turns in his first lineup card as Marlins Skipper. 2 right so far!

78 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out Bryce Harper. *ahem* Next one.

79 days until Polanco makes a stop at third. He made a great stop at 3rd in the 1st inning. A routine stop but come on I only have 2 right so far let me have this one.

80 days until after 2 singles, a double and Homer, Washington walks Giancarlo. I don’t think Washington feared Giancarlo today

81 days until Juan Pierre gets his second stolen base of the game. Kind of have to get on base more than once for this to happen.

82 days until Ricky Nolasco gets a single in his 2nd at bat. Or grounds out to first, same thing.

83 days until Adeiny Hechavarria gets his second single. 0-3 yea no.

84 days until Kotchman makes a stretching play at first. Solid at first, but no stretch.

85 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 3rd batter. Yay Ricky! you are the only one I keep getting right.

86 days until Juan Pierre starts his season with a bunt single. Single yes. Bunt no.

87 days until Rob Brantly calls a masterful game. Called a good game but two HR does not make a masterful game.

88 days until Kotchman hits a single. 0-3. I suck at this so far.

89 days until Washington misses a play ball in center field and Adeiny Hechavarria  gets a standing triple. 0-3 Hech. Come on my Cuban Brother.

90 days until Rob Brantly makes a tag out at home plate. Maybe if Bryce kept them in the park this might have happened.

91 days until Juan Pierre scores a run off Giancarlo’s Home Run. (Read day 147)

92 days until Giancarlo singles for the second time of the game. I’m getting sick of being wrong so many times.

93 days until Ricky Nolasco strikes out his 2nd batter. Thank you, Ricky.

94 days until Polanco makes his debut in Marlins colors. 2 in a row! I’m on a streak!

95 days until Adeiny Hechavarria doubles off the wall. And the streak ends at 2.

96 days until Juan Pierre put back on that Marlins uniform. Can I switch this one with day 95 so I can have 3 in a row?

97 days until Obama throws out the first pitch (it’s just a bit outside). He had more important things to do like running the country.

98 days until Steve Cishek get his 1st K of the season. Wouldn’t he have to come in for that to happen?

99 days until Giancarlo singles off Starsburg. Getting warmer.

125 days until Juan Pierre steals home plate. Didn’t even make it past 2nd.

126 days until until Adeiny Hechavarria makes his debut in Marlins colors. Let’s get this streak going again.

127 days until Justin Ruggiano throw a National at home plate. Didn’t even play today.

128 days until All of baseball sees the Marlins are for real. Just go to the next one.

129 days until Kotchman singles off Strasburg. 0-3. Wrong again.

130 days until Bryan Peterson’s new number makes its Major League debut (please be 14 I like that number). This one makes me sad.

131 days until Giancarlo makes a catch in the stands. I should have said Kotchman.

132 days until Jason Werth misplays a ball in the outfield. I still can’t believe Werth didn’t mess up.

133 days until Marlins lead the NL East by 1 game. Some day this will be true this season. Just not yet.

134 days until Juan Pierre doubles off Strasburg. How many times can I say wrong again?

135 days until Greg Dobbs gets a pinch hit single. At least he came into the game, but he popped out.

136 days until Kotchman scores the game leading run. The Marlins would have to score for that to happen.

137 days until Steve Cishek goes 1 2 3 in the ninth. I don’t even think he stood up from his seat today.

138 days until Giancarlo Stanton smacks a ball off the center field wall for a double. Double yes. Center Field wall no.

139 days until Ricky Nolasco’s 1st strike out of the 250. He did strike out one person, I’m taking the point and will add another later if he hit 250.

140 days until the 1st Adeiny Hechavarria, Solano, Kotchman DP of the season. Try Qualls, Hech, Kotchman  DP.

141 days until Justin Ruggiano make a sport center catch to end the inning. Again he has to be playing for that to happen.

142 days until Juan Pierre steals his 1st base of the season. Nope.

143 days until Steve Cishek gets his 1st save. This looked a lot better 143 days ago.

144 days until Ricky Nolasco throws the first pitch of the Marlins 2013 Season. Don’t think I had a choice in this one.

145 days until Mike Redmond gets his first MLB win. Next time Mike.

146 days until Adeiny Hechavarria opens the season with a single. 0-3, man I can’t get anything right with Hech.

147 days until 41,487 nationals fan go home sadden. It was over 45k and they left happy.

148 days until Giancarlo hits his first homer of 47. No homer for Giancarlo. One of my very first tweets even and it was wrong.

149 days until Lomo tweets about the Marlins win. That will have to wait for a while.

150 days until the Marlins beat the Nationals on opening day. *sigh* Not this Opening Day.

So what is the final total? 10 out of 74. Ouch! If this was turned into a batting average I’d be sent back to the Minors or released. So the Marlins didn’t even come close to doing what I said they were going to do, but who cares baseball is back! More importantly, Marlins Baseball is back. So what if we lost the first game. There are 161 games left in the season. I’ll be in front of my TV or live at the game because I love my Miami Marlins not matter what. Enjoy the season and PLAY BALL!