Zip drive of the week
When they said Phillies starter Vicente Padilla had a little extra zip on his fastball Wednesday in Atlanta, it might not have meant quite what you thought.

	Padilla

Turned out Padilla threw six innings of three-hit baseball with the zipper on his uniform pants not exactly in the full upright and locked position for most of the night.

Our own personal theory on this is that pitching coach Vern Ruhle had told Padilla, who speaks minimal English, that he was "flying open" in his windup -- and something got lost in the translation. But whatever, he definitely gave new meaning to that old pitching term, "keep it down."

Asked by the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times' Randy Miller when he discovered his zipper wasn't where it was supposed to be, Padilla replied: "I felt a cool breeze coming in."

But the question now, after a dominating performance in that state for his first major-league win as a starter, does baseball superstition dictate Padilla do everything exactly the same for his next start?

"Absolutely," Phillies outfield witticist Doug Glanville told Wild Pitches. "In fact, we might have to break it off. We'll make sure all his pants come in without a zipper from now on. The only scary thing is if he starts to do that off the field, too. Then we might have to step in."

Five spot of the week
There are teams out there you could have envisioned hitting five home runs on Opening Day. But the Minnesota Twins sure weren't one of them.

They haven't had any player hit 30 homers in 15 years. They had exactly one game in which they hit at least five homers all last season. And as recently as 1999, it took them nine games into the season to hit their first five home runs.

But don't adjust those box scores. On Opening Day, the Twins did indeed get to work on their home-run trots five times -- including two by the leadoff man, Jacque Jones.

So does this mean they're now a power team, with Ron Gardenhire making out those lineup cards?

No, said Denny Hocking, they're just showing what an intelligent team they are.

"We saw that the wind was blowing out at 50 miles an hour," Hocking told Wild Pitches. "And everyone adjusted their swings to hit infield pop-ups -- and let the wind do the rest."

Well, it worked that day. But the trouble with that kind of strategy, Hocking admitted, is that it isn't real compatible with their home park, the otherwise-hospitable Metrodome.

"With 81 home games in a dome," Hocking said, "it's hard to keep up that (810-homer) pace -- when the wind at the Metrodome swirls at 2 miles an hour."

The Metrodome also might not be conducive to Jones keeping up with Barry Bonds in the multihomer-game race. But Hocking says he can't understand why Bonds is getting all the attention.

"Jacque did it first this year," Hocking said. "Barry was just trying to steal Jacque's thunder."

Yeah, you read it here first. Barry's just got to stop trying to steal Jacque Jones' thunder. We're all tired of that.

Box score line of the week (spring training division)
It was just a little over a week ago, on March 28, that Brewers ace Ben Sheets took his 1.64 spring-training ERA to the mound for his final tuneup before the season, against Anaheim. Nine batters later, Sheets was all tuned up, all right -- because he'd given up nine hits in a row.

	Sheets

Tough to do. But at least it produced this epic line:

2 1/3 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 0 BB, 3 K.

Almost a week later, Sheets was still laughing at the assortment of pitches that got hit.

"0-0 breaking balls, 0-0 changeups, full-count changeups," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Drew Olson. "Fastballs in, fastballs away. Fastballs behind 'em. Balls I didn't even throw were getting hit. I think I saw some fans grabbing a bat (thinking), 'Hey, I can get a hit today.' "

Box score line of the week (Cy Young division)
Before Roger Clemens decided to try to catch a ground ball by David Segui with his bare hand Monday in Baltimore, no defending Cy Young award winner had ever given up eight runs on Opening Day. But from the moment Clemens' pitching hand started swelling, so did his ERA. His line:

4 1/3 IP, 7 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 2 WP, 1 grand slam by Tony Batista.

Coming off a 20-win season, Clemens also managed to lose to a pitcher (Scott Ericson) who was coming off a zero-win season. Which hadn't happened in 32 years. (See Useless Information for more details.) Then again, as this game demonstrated, it wasn't last year anymore.

"At 3 o'clock," Segui told Wild Pitches, "they were both zero-game winners. That's the way we looked at it, anyway."

Omar Vizquel imitation of the week
OK, so Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling threw shutouts in their first turn through the Arizona rotation. So that hadn't happened before?

Your discriminating baseball experts knew that the big story in those games didn't occur on the mound. It occurred at the plate, where the nimble Schilling actually beat out a bunt for a single in his first at-bat of the season.

But, humble as ever, Schilling deflected all of Wild Pitches' accolades for this momentous feat.

"How is this a big story?" he wondered. "With my wheels? Come on."

Injury of the week
Some players get hurt in spring training. Other players get hurt Opening Day. What's really challenging is getting hurt in between spring training and the opening of the season.

	Giles

So Pirates thumper Brian Giles couldn't help but clinch this week's Injury of the Week award -- by straining a rib-cage muscle in batting practice before his team's opener Monday in New York.

Asked by the Beaver County (Pa.) Times' John Perrotto to explain what happened, Giles deadpanned: "I was riding my motorcycle and tried to do a wheelie."

OK, not really. But you may be wondering: What does a guy do Opening Day after injuring himself in batting practice? Well, he hangs out in the trainer's room, getting treatment -- or, in Brian Giles-ese, "stim."

Someone then made the mistake of asking what "stim" was.

"It's Biggie (trainer Kent Biggerstaff) hitting me in the side," Giles replied, "with an R161 (bat)."

Giles never did play in the Mets series -- but he did make it into the on-deck circle once, where, in an apparent attempt to prove he wasn't a decoy, he took some ferocious swings.

"Some guy in the stands hollered at me and said me I (stunk)," Giles quipped. "It hurt my feelings. I had to swing hard after that."

Bonds market of the week
We're trying to figure out why Barry Bonds wouldn't walk 400 times this year, after an opening week of the season in which he had more home runs (five) than outs (four) through Friday.

Fortunately, we have our hero, Terry Mulholland, to explain it to us. After allowing a 459-foot homer to Bonds on Wednesday that just missed becoming the first home run ever hit into Dodger Stadium's upper deck, Mulholland was asked why the Dodgers keep pitching to Bonds.

"He's not going to hit 1,000 home runs this year," Mulholland calculated, despite apparent scientific evidence to the contrary. "If he does, I guess we'll have to quit pitching to him."

Ex-broadcaster of the week
There's nothing like the sight of his team blowing a 6-1 lead one night, then almost blowing another one the next, to make a manager think about his previous line of work.

Ask Jeff Torborg, manager of a Marlins team whose bullpen had a 27.00 ERA after the first series of the season, in Montreal.

"There was a guy in the stands screaming, 'Torborg, go back to the broadcast booth,' " Torborg said after the Marlins had barely hung on to win for the first time this season, 6-5, on Wednesday . "I was thinking, 'I just might.' That sounded like a sensational idea."

Homecoming of the week
In between the moment he turned down $140 million and the moment he was introduced before his first game of the year in Philadelphia, Scott Rolen had five months to contemplate the reaction he might get.

Cheers? Boos? Too much mustard on his soft pretzels? Who knew?

But Rolen admitted it was hard to stop thinking about it until it finally happened.

"I want to thank (Pat) Burrell for reminding me every time it slipped my mind," Rolen said. "He'd poke me and say, 'Boy, I can't wait to get there.' "

"Oh, I didn't say much," Burrell told Wild Pitches. "I just told him, 'Thank God I'm not hitting fifth (behind Rolen). I don't want to miss my name being announced.' "

Well, as it turned out, all that worry was about pretty much nothing. When Rolen was introduced to 50,000 people on Opening Day, there were way more cheers than boos. And nine innings later, miraculously, that hadn't changed.

"Of course," said Rolen, who reached base all five trips, "it was good to not make an out."

But his teammates weren't ready to chalk that up to a townwide lovefest quite yet.

"I just think," quipped Doug Glanville, "people's faces were too frozen to boo."

Comedy Central of the week