Glass Half Empty: Cubs Opening Day intros were sad on so many levels

The Chicago Cubs home opener at Wrigley Field is supposed to be an unforgettable annual experience. But with the Cubbies hosting the Colorado Rockies on April 1 for that event, everything ended up coming off like a cruel April Fool's joke for the Wrigley faithful.

For starters, there were questions about whether the game would even start on time or be played with the weather in the area. Rather than the sun shining in the Windy City for some well-lit day baseball, it was a cold, overcast day with rain on-and-off in the forecast. So Mother Nature got in there to diminish the scene to begin with.

Then the Cubs added to that mess as well. Perhaps most notable was the most pitiful display of pyrotechnics you've ever seen for the player intros before the first pitch.

Someone could've stopped at a fireworks stand on the side of a rural highway and found something better suited for the moment than what the Cubs actually put on the field on Monday.

Cubs home opener was an extremely sad scene

Even with the lackluster pyrotechnics, new Cubs manager Craig Counsell was either in awe of the disappointing display or was legitimate scared a bit by the "fireworks" going off next to him as he was introduced and ran onto Wrigley Field.

Luckily, newcomer Shota Imanaga decided he would make up for the organization's pyrotechnic shortcomings with a show of his own in his Cubs debut. Imanaga pitched six innings against the Rockies, allowing just two hits and three base-runners (one on a Christopher Morel error) while striking out nine.

Imanaga's nine strikeouts are tied for the second-most in an MLB debut for a Japanese pitcher, a great sign for one of Chicago's prized offseason additions.

Unfortunately, the flip side of that was that the Cubs offense mirrored the player-intro fireworks early in the home opener, managing just one hit over the first five innings of action after they started out the year dropping two in a three-game set against the defending World Series champion Rangers on the road. But Chicago found some life in the sixth with two base hits and a little league home run for Morel, more than making up for his earlier error.