Did you really think things were going to change?  Did you forget that the team that won the World Series still played ulcer-inducing baseball on a regular basis?  Now that the Opening Day “we won the World Series!” aura of goodwill has faded, we’ve gone back to the same brand of baseball as last season.  Still, yesterday’s brand of torture merits some breaking down.

Because it makes me feel a little better.

The Good: Brandon Belt and Buster Posey.  In the two games we’ve seen so far, some of the best at-bats I’ve seen have come from these two players.  Even when Posey struck out with the bases loaded, he had worked the count full after fulling behind 0-2.  Belt seems to be a machine when it comes to taking pitches and working into a favorable count, which of course led to his first ever Major League home run.  Among the group of Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Posey, and Belt, that’s really four guys who will take a lot of pitches and give pitchers fits.

The Bad: Losing to the Dodgers hurts.  You know what hurts more than that?  Losing to the Dodgers twice to kick off the season while hearing their fans crow about a fall back to reality for the Giants.  To top it all off, Dodger fans put a Giants fan in a coma after a brutal parking lot assault post-game on Wednesday.  Not a great week.

The Ugly: The defense.  Never have I seen such a God-awful showing on defense to kick off a season.  The pitching is good.  The hitting will come around.  But if you can’t catch the damn ball, things won’t go your way.  Of the six runs the Dodgers have scored in this seasons, at least four of them can be attributed to poor decisions on defense.

The Uglier: Today’s lineup.  Miguel Tejada is leading off, and Aaron Rowand is getting the nod in centerfield.  ’Nuff said.

The Uglier-er: I fork over 25 bucks a month for MLB TV and because Fox doesn’t think people in Seattle want to watch the Giants, I’m blacked out of a broadcast.  Right, why wouldn’t the West Coast want to watch the Yankees play the Tigers?

On a lighter note, tomorrow is another national telecast (ESPN2, 5pm), so for you Giants fans in Seattle, this would be a great chance to meet up at Auto Battery in Capitol Hill.  Hope to see you all there (and hope that by that point we’re not 0-3).