Glavine looked fantastic until the sixth. Joe Smith looked nervous, but he’ll get over that. I liked that Willie trusted him with a lead. Heilman got a little lucky with the double play ball up the middle. Rolen hit that ball pretty sharply. Heilman owes Valentin a dinner for bailing him out. As usual, Wagner can make us fans nervous but comes through in the end. I was very surprised that Willie stuck with Feliciano going into the eighth inning. He’s more of a lefty specialist, one inning at most, type of pitcher to me.
Great D tonight. It was nice to see that they looked so sharp this early in the season. I thought we might see Easley pinch hit for Valentin against Tyler Johnson in the seventh. Valentin’s a shaky right handed hitter at best. I’d really like to see Easley get a lot of at-bat’s this year against lefty’s. Last year Valentin hit .219 against them. It turned out well in the end as he saved the eighth inning with a great play up the middle for another highlight double play.