Thoughts from Opening Day

One game doesn't make a season, so it's hard to learn a lot from Opening Day. But we've been without a full slate of real baseball games for so long, here are some random thoughts, notes and observations from yesterday's festivities ...

Rafael Furcal is back in the leadoff spot for the Dodgers now that Juan Pierre lost his starting LF job to Andre Either. Furcal looked pretty comfortable (3-for-4, walk, run, RBI) at the top. Expecting a big bounceback now that he's healthy.

Rookie Carlos Gomez drew rave reviews in his debut as the Twins' new CF (2-for-3, walk, two steals, two runs, double). Gomez doesn't have much power potential and probably could benefit from some more seasoning in the minors ... but he could swipe 30 bags this year if he can hit enough to stick around. The kid's scary fast.

I thought Matt Capps was supposed to be the one sure thing, fantasy-wise, on these Pittsburgh Pirates this year. Hard to explain his ninth-inning meltdown with a five-run lead, although he wasn't helped by some inexplicable shoddy defense. Let's just chalk it up as a bad day and move on.

As for the implosions by Eric Gagne and Kerry Wood in the Brewers-Cubs game ... those guys had a bunch of question marks surrounding them already, and it would've been good to see a nice, easy outing from them. The questions remain.

No surprise here: Johan Santana was awesome in his Mets debut. It should be a glorious year for him ... but you knew that already.