VIANO COLUMN: Baseball fans, it's time to panic

The San Diego Padres will never score a run.

Not this year, not next year, and maybe not ever again. It’s simple math, people. Zero runs through three games. Extrapolate that out to 162 and it equals zero. I checked the math. Twice.

Baseball’s opening week is upon us, and along with the spring ritual that is unyielding baseball optimism comes brutal, crushing pessimism.

That, or just the reassurance we’ve been searching for.

In Chicago, a town with such blind faith in the losing-est loser franchise in the history of losing that they continue to pack Wrigley Field with terrifying, cult-like devotion, the glass is perpetually half-full, flying in the face of any rational thought.

But this year? This year it finally pays off. Through three games, the Cubs are a virtual lock for 162-0 and the first of many consecutive World Series titles. They’re an unstoppable machine of the most exciting young players in the sport, three elite pitchers and the game’s best manager.

Joy and sorrow are not reserved for San Diego and Chicago, either.

The Arizona Diamondbacks clearly erred in bringing in pitchers Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller, who were each shelled in their first start. It’s only a matter of time before the team unloads its most recent mistakes.

The Cincinnati Reds, perceived by some as the worst team in baseball entering the season, are 3-0. Joey Votto has some crow to serve.

Trevor Story? A skinnier Babe Ruth.

Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, a combined 0-for-15 entering Thursday's games? Headed to the waiver wire.

Felix Hernandez’s average fastball velocity dipping under 90 miles per hour on opening day? Call the surgeons.

The baseball season is 1.9 percent over, but don’t let that fool you. Results this time of year are as important as any in September. Any baseball cliché machine out there will tell you that.

Front offices around the league are probably trying to make you feel better. Trying to tell you to remain calm. Trying to tell you it’s a long season. They’ll tell you the Toronto Blue Jays were in last place on May 1 last year before making the playoffs. They’ll tell you fellow playoff qualifiers in the Texas Rangers were 7-15 on the same date.

But you and I both know, when the office doors are closed, they’re running around and gibbering in tongues, their ties tied around their foreheads and bonfires burning between cubicles.

The sky is falling and the time for baseball panic is now.

Except in Chicago, of course, where nothing could deny the Cubs’ inevitable coronation.

What’s that? There was a collision? Kyle Schwarber left on a cart?

Screw it, season’s over. There’s always next year.

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Andy Viano is a sports reporter and columnist. He can be reached at 758-4446 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.