Braves on Pace to Go 0-162

The Atlanta Braves opened up their 2008 campaign in Washington's brand new stadium last night and lost on a walk-off homerun by Ryan Zimmerman in the bottom of the 9th.

Peter Moylan gave up the blast after the Braves rallied to tie things up in the top of the 9th after a pass ball plated pinch-runner Martin Prado. The Braves were lucky to avoid Nationals' closer Chad Cordero who was unable to pitch. They finally generated some offense to plate the second run of the game, but could not get through the heart of the Nationals' line-up in the 9th to send the game into extra frames.

Tim Hudson was brilliant after hurting himself in the 1st inning with an errant pick-off throw to first. He settled down to retire 17 straight batters, but the Braves could not get their bats going against Odalis Perez and the Nationals' bullpen.

Chipper Jones was the lone offensive bright spot for Atlanta with a solo homerun, called by President Bush (more on him in a moment) in the ESPN booth. Chipper crushed a lined drive in the 9th as well, but it went right back to the pitcher. Other than the Braves HofFamer, the offense was pitiful and the base-running (McCann thrown out trying to lengthen a single; Kelly Johnson picked off first) was worse.

The Braves did sport a different look for the night, going with a darker blue jersey, blue numbers and an all-blue cap. I liked the look, but have no idea if it was a one-shot thing to make the night in Washington even more special or something we will see more often this season.

President Bush spent a painful inning and a half in the ESPN booth with Jon Miller and the always humble Joe Morgan. Where was the speechwriter? Bush couldn't come up with anything to say for the first inning, then slowly opened up before it was time for him to go. The ESPN guys were cackling with phony laughter to make the visit appear to be fun, but it was obvious that they were struggling to get anything out of the president and the president was frozen on live TV without Dick Cheney, Karen Hughes or Karl Rove giving him advice. Maybe he was flustered from the audible booing he received when he tossed out the first pitch.

The Braves head home for a series with the Pirates starting tonight with Tom Glavine on the mound (seems like old times) against Ian Snell.