CHICAGO -- It's easy to trash a writer for blowing his first baseball column of the season, but please don't judge me too harshly.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a professional. This column is a part of the process, part of the job, and I come to Wrigley Field to win. Every column is sacred.

But if you feel like you've already wasted your time, it's important to remember sportswriting is a parallel-front approach and progress isn't linear. Sometimes, it's not even obvious.

The Cubs began a new era with a familiar result -- an Opening Day loss. Rob Grabowski/US Presswire

This is my Opening Day column. I still get a few butterflies. I'm not alone. As Theo Epstein noted Thursday morning, "Opening Day feels like a holiday, like a celebration."

Well, maybe before Opening Day ends in a loss. The Cubs lost 2-1 to the Washington Nationals on Thursday in pretty familiar fashion: no offense and a blown save. You might be disappointed in the loss, but the new Cubs Way preaches Opening Day is for amateurs. Theo's Cubs have a proprietary formula that values other games more.

"I really cherish the second day of the year," Epstein said. "Because that's when the baseball rhythms kick in."

Baseball is better with baseball rhythms.

I don't care who wins or loses. I root for my column. With the loss went my paean to baseball.

Luckily, Matt Garza felt my pain. With reporters camped out at Kerry Wood's locker -- he blew the save by walking three in the eighth -- Garza thought the media was taking it all too seriously.

"Shhh, quiet, guys, I think someone died," he said from his locker. "[Bleep], guys, it's Game 1! It's like a [bleeping] morgue in here."

Then, he turned up the clubhouse stereo extra loud. Bob Marley to the rescue, every day and every night.

So I trudged back up to the press box to write. Bear with me today and the rest of April, and what the hell, maybe through Memorial Day. I might misspell some words or botch a few metaphors. I might call Ryan Dempster, who looked good in the opener, a Cy Young candidate. We'll see how it goes. I don't like to not write well, but I promise you things will get better.