The Korean broadcast of the Mets/Marlins was on in one room and the Yankees/Jays on MLB.com in the other. I walked back and forth, cleaned a little house and drank some coffee. Now that’s a morning.

I was already kicking around ideas in my head for a snide Josh Hamilton comment in this here space. Then he launched a JJ Putz first-pitch fastball into the right field bleachers. To make matters worse I really like Putz and love the way they introduce him at Mariners games.

Wang was solid and did his usual thing — ground balls, staying ahead of hitters, nothing over-powering at all and in the end a win, out-dueling another guy (Halladay) who, like another great late 90s/early millennium pitcher, Roy Oswalt, is probably on his way down.

Also in the Yankee game Melky Cabrera with back-to-back fantastic run saving catches, capped off with a 6th inning shot off Halladay. Cabrera came out for a curtain call as a pitch was being thrown and Halladay screamed “get the fuck off the field!” at Melky.

I just checked the Blog-Cuss-O-Meter after that f-bomb and the swear percentage has actually gone down to 5%.

My Dad and his friend Gerry went to the A’s home opener vs. the Red Sox. I watched a bit and was blown away how focused Matsuzaka looked. I think that may have been the most impressive I’ve seen him.

At some point today MLB.com made the screen on it 800KB version bigger. They still seem to go out of their way to make you feel the pain of not having a system that can stand the latest state-of-the-art option, but at least it’s bigger than a dime now.

I went to an A’s game last year with the same two guys mentioned above. We sat behind this 6-8 guy wearing these dirty construction boots and a tanktop. He was a real tough guy, gregarious and friendly, talking to everyone around us. His buddy was a little 5-5, quiet, balding guy with a goatee and a black long coat. At one point Travis Buck came to the plate, his over-sized player photo on the big screen, the crowd cheering — the 6-8 leaned over to his buddy and said, “My gawwwd he’s gorgeous.”

It became clear to me in watching the Yankee game that Joba Chamberlain is currently the most popular player on the Yankees. Even more popular than Jeter. I kind of like Joba. He was a little off today, walked a guy and seemed a little rattled. Now, this is probably the neo-Confucian in me, but when Joba struck out Frank Thomas to end the inning he completely overreacted, pumping his fist and screaming like he’d just won a playoff game. That’s The Big Hurt, Joba. He’s had 11 seasons with 100 RBIs. Show some respect.

More disrespect: Larry Bowa, getting thrown out of the Dodger game after being told to stand inside the coaches box. Is it not clear that the umpires are cracking down and protecting base coaches in the wake of Mike Coolbaugh’s on-field death last July? Bowa was several feet down the line and blew a gasket when Ed Montague told him to move. When Joe Torre tried to get between the two Bowa pushed his boss out of the way. Torre looked like a pathetic weeble-wobble, his authority completely under-minded. When Bowa got into the dugout he pushed over a water cooler. What an imbecile.

And in that game the Giants finally managed to score a run after nearly 16 innings without. On a walk. Then they lost the game by handing the ball to Keiichi Yabu. It was a terrible game in every way. Even Bruce Bochy’s decision to let Matt Cain throw 114 pitches made me a little sick to my stomach.

My fantasy team in the EWC reader league dropped from first to eighth today. It’s that time of year.

Lotte went 4-0, beating the champion SK Wyvrens 6-2. Karim Garcia hit his second opposite field HR of the year, and ripped a nice double just inside the right field foul line. I read an article about him today talking about his kid, who was born without a large intestine and has to be fed through a tube in his side. Garcia said it was really hard to leave.

After the game there was a quick interview with Jerry Royster. The announcer, in an valiant though failed attempt at speaking English, told Royster the team has been scoring a lot of runs in the first inning, then asked if that was intentional.

Watched some of the Yomiuri/Chunichi game tonight. Gotta love the Giants starting 0-5. Marc Kroon got in on the curse act, giving up a run to save the loss.

Former Expos, Red Sox, Rockies, Giants (Fresno) pitcher Kim Sun-woo looked lousy in his first start for Doosan going 4 innings and giving up 4 runs in the loss. How that team rationalized paying him 1.5 million U.S. and not paying Daniel Rios that money is beyond me. Well, no it’s not.

Tomorrow the Reds send Arroyo versus Haren. Crap. I’m curious to see what Matt Garza can do. If he’s as good as people think he is it’ll go a long way to Tampa breaking the 70 win plateau for the first time ever.