The best part about Opening Day, or at least a Home Opener, is the fun and excitement that surrounds the opening of the park. It is awesome and a lot of fun, having been a part of an Opening Day before myself. There's all sorts of pomp and circumstance, usually something special happens, as was the case on Monday when the Indians welcomed the Yankees to open up Progressive Field.

The problem that has been the case with the Indians the past few seasons? They never really win the game. So all the fun and excitement is quickly poked with a needle and popped. Or in this case, a slight slit that causes a slow leak, because that game took forever!

The Indians pulled out all the stops this year, having five fathers throw to their sons. The fathers of Zach McAllister, Nick Swisher, Michael Brantley, Sandy Alomar Jr., and Terry Francona all threw the first pitches out to their sons all at once. Talk about a family affair, talk about tradition, talk about something incredibly cool for everyone watching, and those particular families.

"It's something unusual," said Sandy Sr. "It's something that hasn't been done before. It's something special for all of the fathers here."

A lot of big league talent past and present were on the field in that moment, except for Zach McAllister's dad Steve, who probably had the best line.

"I knew that a lot of the guys who were going to throw out the pitch were big leaguers," Steve McAllister said, "so I said yes before they could tell me no."

But the former Double-A player now Major League scout got his chance to be a part of it all, with the elder Sandy Alomar, the original Tito, Steve Swisher, and Mickey Brantley.

"Having the opportunity to do something like this, it goes way deep," Steve Swisher said. "It means an awful lot to me. I want the people to know how proud I am to have the opportunity to do that."

Castrovince has a great piece on Francona and his father and you can see the video there as well, but while that was fun to watch, there was a game to be played, one really long game. The slow leak of a tire, or a balloon. Painfully deflating as it had just been filled up hours before and was flying sky high. Five years in a row now.

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Facing the 4-5-1 portion of Tampa Bay’s rotation, the Indians learned that “#4 starter” and “#5
starter” mean something different in Tampa than they mean most other places. The Indians’
versions held their own, but very few games are won with a zero, and Buff looks at whether panic
is warranted with respect to the Indians’ offense, Trevor Bauer’s wildness, Zach McAllister’s
ordinariness, the preponderance of right-handers in the bullpen, Nick Swisher’s slow start, or
Tampa Bay’s powder blue uniforms.

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The beauty of baseball was on display on Sunday afternoon in Tropicana Field. The Indians began the game with 19 consecutive innings without a run. A scoreless first inning against David Price pushed that number to 20, after they left yet another runner on third base with less than two outs. With Price on the mound and the Indians offense struggling mightily, it looked like it was going to be a long day.

Then, something happened. The Indians got a two-out RBI single from Drew Stubbs, who entered the game with an 0-for-9 slump with five strikeouts, and everybody in the third base dugout relaxed. By the middle of the third inning, it was 4-0. By the middle of the fifth inning, it was 8-0. All of the runs were earned and all of the runs were scored off of reigning Cy Young Award winner David Price.

In total, the Indians banged out 17 hits, five from Carlos Santana, hit five home runs, and put a baker’s dozen up on the board. The 13-0 thumping made for a fun plane ride back to Cleveland with a 3-3 road trip against two of the American League East’s best and four of the division’s best pitchers in R.A. Dickey, Brandon Morrow, Matt Moore, and David Price.

Normally, it would be hard to take a lot of good out of a series where the team was shut out twice and salvaged just the series finale, but the Indians got a lot of encouraging things from two key parts of their rotation and some of the underlying differences from 2012 to 2013 showed themselves.

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The Cleveland Indians come back home for today’s home opener after what, for them, has to be considered a nice road trip to open the season.

Sure, 3-3 on the road doesn’t sound good on the surface, especially since the Tribe won the first two games of the trip in Toronto. But this is a Tribe team that has averaged 89 losses a year for the past five years, has been a collective 77 games under .500 on the road during that time, and was facing Toronto and Tampa Bay – only two of the American League’s better teams – and, well, splitting the season’s first road trip isn’t a bad deal at all.

Even though six games is a small sample size, Tribe fans got a glimpse during the first week of what they will see from the team this year – and what the Tribe needs to do to be competitive.

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