Free Friday: Opening Day Extravaganza!
OK, so in celebration of Opening Day, I’m writing about all 13 games that happened yesterday—not so much the games themselves, but one or maybe two things from each game that interests me.
This is a format I’ve been tinkering with a little bit, and I’m curious: Would you like this to be a regular feature? That is to say: Would you like me to periodically give you a post like this, where I go through each game of the evening and give you a few thoughts, stats, opinions and stuff that come to mind? I would like to give you some baseball updates as the season goes along, and this seems a decent way to do it. But maybe you’d prefer a different format for your baseball updates.
I’ll throw a poll up at the end, and you can tell me.
Orioles 11, Angels 3
Key takeaway: Orioles are looking good… Mike Trout homers in Angels’ blowout loss, which is how you know that spring has truly sprung.
Adley Rutschman has obviously been a very good player in each of his first two seasons—5.4 combo WAR in his first season, 4.7 WAR last year—but pretty much everybody (me included) seems to believe that he’s better than even the numbers suggest. The Orioles went from nowheresville, worst team in baseball, to a winning team in his rookie season, to a 101-win team in 2023, and it sure feels like Rutschman is very much at the heart of that skyrocket climb, not only for his good offense and not only for his catcher defense but also for his presence, his leadership, his unerring compass for doing good and helpin’ the ballclub.
Well, Rutschman went 2-for-4 with a walk on Opening Day, he drove in two, he scored three, and while it’s so early we don’t even have to say it’s early, well, it occurs to me: This might be his MVP season. The player he reminds me of most is Buster Posey, and it was Buster’s third year in the big leagues when he put his offense together—hit .336/.408/.549—and led the Giant to a second World Series and won his MVP award. Johnny Bench also won an MVP in his third year. Yogi Berra won his first MVP in his third full season as catcher, Roy Campanella won his first MVP in his third full season, I’m stretching the point to make it but… this might be Adley’s year to be MVP.
Tigers 1, White Sox 0
Key takeaway: Tarik Skubal and Colt Keith shine, and both have such amazing baseball movie names… The long year for the White Sox begins.
Again, too early to be early, but I told you that Tarik Skubal is my sneaky Cy Young pick for 2024, and he sure looked it on Opening Day. Six innings, three singles, six strikeouts, no walks, 20 swings and misses. Sure it’s the White Sox and all that, but I’m telling you: This guy is the real deal. I felt like I was going out on a limb putting him at No. 81 in my top 100 baseball players for 2024. By year’s end, that might be really low.
OK, did you see BrooksGate’s social post asking what an All-Star team of the four worst teams in baseball would look like? The teams chosen, rightly, are the White Sox, Athletics, Nationals and Rockies. And here’s his team:
C: Keibert Ruiz
1B: Andrew Vaughn
2B: Zack Gelove
3B: J.D. Davis
SS: CJ Abrams
LF: Lane Thomas
CF: Luis Robert
RF: Nolan Jones
DH: Kris Bryant
P: MacKenzie Gore or Josiah Gray or JP Sears
Top reliever: Michael Kopech?
That’s eye-opening—i.e., that’s a pretty terrible team. Maybe you find room for Brent Rooker or Yoan Moncada. The only one of these people in my top 100 is Robert. Maybe CJ Abrams will become a massive star. Maybe a couple of these other guys break out. But, yeah, it’s pretty dim. And the White Sox managed to get only TWO GUYS on this team. Sorry, Chicago.
Reds 8, Nationals 2
Key takeaway: Did the Reds get a steal when they signed Frankie Montas? He was a pretty darned good pitcher with Oakland, his velocity looks really good, the Reds are paying him $14 million this year, it could be good… Joey Gallo, now on the Nationals, struck out three times, which is how you know spring has sprung.
OK, I’m giddy about Nick Martini. For one thing, it’s an amazing name. It’s one of those great baseball names that’s also a great private eye name and also a great gangster name and also a great…
…well, I’m sure you already jumped ahead: It’s a combination name of the bartender and owner of Martini’s in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The sweet bar and restaurant owner who broke-a-da-jukebox to get George Bailey money at the end is Giuseppe Martini. And the bartender, who shouts out, “Get me, I’m giving out wings!” is named Nick*.
*Though he doesn’t like it when George Bailey calls him Nick.
George: “Well, Nick, that’s your name, isn’t it?”
Nick: “What’s that got to do with it? I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox.”
Anyway, our new hero, Nick Martini, grew up about an hour northwest of Chicago, was a gigantic Cubs fan, went to Kansas State, got taken in the seventh round by the Cardinals, bounced around the minors for a long time, got some brief chances with Oakland and the Padres, played 25 games for his beloved Cubs*, then went to play a year in South Korea. He was back in the states in 2023, playing for the Reds, slugging .583 in 29 games.
*As expected, some of my friends weighed in on the whole question of whether Chicago fans ever call them the “Cubbies.” The most passionate of these was Jeff Garlin, who says: Uh, no. “If they do,” he says, “they are not a true baseball fan.”
And on Opening Day, he hit TWO home runs, and I’m ready to drive the Nick Martini bus to glory. Get me, I’m giving out wings!
Happy Friday! Our Friday posts are free so everyone can enjoy them. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support. And here’s 20% off for Opening Day!
Yankees 5, Astros 4
Key takeaway: New York came back from a 4-0 deficit and the nightmare for all us Yankees loathers begins… The Joe Espada era starts in Houston with a semi-crushing defeat, though new closer Josh Hader did Josh Hader things, striking out the side on 13 pitches in his one inning of work.
Well it didn’t take long for Juan Soto to earn True Yankee Points—in the ninth inning, he gunned down Mauricio Dubón at the plate to prevent the tying run from scoring. Being as objective as I can, it wasn’t that great a throw—it was up the line some, and Soto wasn’t too deep when he made it. But gunning a key runner out at the plate—especially when defense is not your strong suit—is a definite way to earn those TY Points.
The question is: How many True Yankee Points does it take to become a True Yankee? It seems to me that it’s a sliding scale. For instance, it didn’t matter how many good things Alex Rodriguez did, he would never achieve True Yankee status. Paul O’Neill, meanwhile, became a True Yankee in roughly his third week on the team, and he kept renewing his status year after year. It might be that True Yankee points cannot be earned by doing things like winning the MVP award or leading the league in home runs, but instead can only be earned through creating small and unexpected delights. Anyway, Soto also went 1 for 3 with a couple of walks.
Welcome to the Pinstripes!
Twins 4, Royals 1
Key takeaway: Good win for the Twins, but also a total bummer, as Royce Lewis had to be pulled with a quad injury… Maikel Garcia led off the Royals’ season with a home run, and they never even got a runner to third base after that.
Man, can’t the Minnesota Twins catch ANY breaks? We’ve all followed along for years as the impossibly talented Byron Buxton has dealt with injury after injury after injury. He was the second pick in the 2012 draft, and he’s in his 10th big-league season, and he has played in 100 games in just one of those seasons. It breaks my heart, not only for him, but for all of us, because we have never been able to see just how great he might have been.
Royce Lewis was the first overall pick in the 2017 draft. He slowly moved his way through the minor leagues, both wowing scouts and baffling them. He endured and fought through multiple injuries, including multiple ACL blowouts. Then, last year, at age 25, he has his first extended stay in the big leagues, and he was absolutely fantastic, hitting .309/.372/.548 with 15 home runs in 59 games to go along with plus-defense. He has played a grand total of 71 big-league games, but there has been MVP talk surrounding him.
Then, on Opening Day, first at-bat, Lewis mashes a 423-foot bomb of a home run, second time up, he hits a single, and when Carlos Correa hits a double, he’s thinking about scoring from first, and he feels something bad as he rounds second base, and now everybody waits for MRI results, and maybe it will be OK. Maybe. Fingers crossed. What do the baseball gods have against Minnesota?
Dodgers 7, Cardinals 1
Key takeaway: Mookie Mookie Mookie Mookie Mookie… Paul Goldschmidt went 3-for-4 with a home for the Cardinals. Nobody else got a hit. That probably isn’t a blueprint for success.
OK, Mookie Betts’ numbers: .636/.733/.1.273 with a double, 2 homers, 7 runs and 8 RBIs in three games. Normally, we would project what that might look like over a whole season, but as Mike Schur texted when I pointed out Mookie’s numbers: “Seems low.” So, maybe we wait to see if he can raise them up before projecting.
Actually, look at the top four in the Dodgers’ lineup through three games:
Mookie Betts: 7-15 with 4 walks and 8 RBIs
Shohei Ohtani: 5-13 with a walk, a stolen bases and 2 RBIs
Freddie Freeman: 3 for 9 with 5 walks, a homer, 3 RBIs
Will Smith: 6 for 14 with a walk and 2 RBIs
So all in all, they’re hitting .412 with a .516 on-base percentage.
Pirates 6, Marlins 5 (12 innings)
Key takeaway: The Pirates struck out 17 times—Andrew McCutchen leading the way with the Golden Sombrero—but Oneil Cruz blasted a 105-mph opposite-field home run in the eighth to tie it, and they managed to get zombie runner Ke’Bryan Hayes to the plate in the 12th for the victory… Ah, a new year in Miami. Last year, they won their first 12 one-run games and went 7-3 in extra innings.
OK, please tell me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Triolo to Cruz to Joe the most poetic-sounding double-play combination in baseball right now?
Everyone everywhere is starting to know
That when Pirates pitchers are feeling great woe
They get a ground ball to Jared Triolo
A flip to Oneil who unleashes a throw
That smacks in the glove of Ol’ Connor Joe
And all is again well, no outs to go
Triolo to Cruz to Joe
Padres 6, Giants 4
Key takeaway: San Diego put up a four-spot in the seventh inning, thanks to three singles, a double, a walk, a stolen base and an error, and came back to win… Rough time for Giants reliever Luke Jackson, who gave up two hits, a walk and three runs without recording an out. Well, Ryan Walker didn’t help him by giving up a single and a double when he came in, but, alas, it’s Jackson who has the “inf” next to his ERA right now.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I’ve been waiting for like 24 hours to talk about this. Our dear friend Sarah Langs always comes up with the best stuff. But she outdid even herself with this one. On Thursday, the Giants started Michael Conforto in leftfield.
That marked the SEVENTEENTH STRAIGHT YEAR that the Giants have started a different player in leftfield on Opening Day, this going back to, yeah, Barry Bonds’ last season in 2007.
This might be the single greatest statistic I have ever seen. It would be great no matter what, but the fact that it dates back to Barry Bonds is, well, this is basically baseball’s version of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher curse that he-who-shall-not be named* cursed the position in anger.
*No, not Rob Manfred.
Has Barry Bonds cursed leftfield for the Giants forever? Well, you decide:
2008: Dave Roberts (!)
2009: Fred Lewis
2010: Mark DeRosa
2011: Pat Burrell
2012: Aubrey Huff
2013: Andres Torres
2014: Mike Morse
2015: Nori Aoki
2016: Angel Pagan
2017: Jarrett Parker
2018: Hunter Pence
2019: The aforementioned Connor Joe (!)
2020: Alex Dickerson
2021: Austin Slater
2022: Joc Pederson
2023: Blake Sabol
2024: Michael Conforto
I believe every child in Bay Area schools should be made to memorize this list and keep up with it every year. I hope this streak lasts forever.
Blue Jays 8, Rays 2
Key takeaway: Two Hall of Fame sons—Cavan Biggio and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.—homered for Toronto, and José Berríos pitched six solid innings as he once again began what so many of us refuse to stop believing will be his breakout season… Rough start for the Rays but Yandy Diaz went 3-for-4 as he kept trying to convince a disbelieving public that he really is this good a hitter.
It has been kind of baffling to watch Vladimir Guerrero Jr. the last couple years. In 2021, he was ridiculously good, hit .311/.401/.611, led the league with 48 home runs and 123 RBIs, would have won the MVP had it not been for a phenomenon named Shohei, and led us to believe he might be the best hitter of his generation. Then, the last two seasons, he’s been, well, he certainly hasn’t been bad, but his average exit velocity went down, even as he made somewhat more contact. It was weird; he just wasn’t hitting the ball quite as hard as he had in 2021.
Well, on Monday he hit the ball very, very, very hard. He only got one hit out of it—his 450-foot, monster blast in the sixth inning—but he also hit a 105.6-mph, 400-foot fly ball that would have been out of some ballparks, and a 108-mph groundout. It’s exciting to see Vladdy Jr. smashing baseballs again. We’ll see how it plays out over the long season.
Ranger 4, Cubs 3 (10 innings)
Key takeaway: Adolis Garcia pretty much picked up where he left off in the offseason, with a couple hits, a walk and a home run.… New Cubs manager Craig Counsell got right to work, using eight different pitchers. Those pitchers issued six walks, two of them in the 10th inning as the Cubs tried to work around the zombie runner.
OK, I wouldn’t call this an official position, or anything like that, but… I’m tired of the zombie runner. I’ve always held back on this, because it seems to me that few people stick around for extra-inning games anyway, and before the pitch timer, baseball games were so absurdly long, and, hey, putting a runner on second base kind of felt novel, and the people who run baseball are so rarely novel.
But after watching it for however long, you know, it doesn’t really add excitement to the game. It does add a lot of walks to the game, some of those intentional, which, as we know, is maybe my least favorite thing in the world, up there with the credit-card sales pitches that they do on planes and spam calls from your area code and the way season two of “Friday Night Lights” ended (yeah, we got there).
Of course, I’d like them to just go back to the old ways—the way they will continue to play in the postseason, because everybody knows this whole thing is kind of bogus. But, honestly, if they’re going to fashion some contrivance like this in the regular season to protect teams against long games, I wish they’d just load the bases and give each team two outs or make extra innings a home run derby or something like that. Make it a true shootout and separate from the rest of the game.
The Rangers scored their game-winning run on a groundout, two walks to load the bases, another groundout and a single. That’s… not really all that fun.
Guardians 8, Athletics 0
Key takeaway: David Fry and Tyler Freeman—who sound like they’re the only members of a 1980s pop band—combined for five hits, three runs and two RBIs, and Shane Bieber dominated an overwhelmed Oakland lineup… The A’s have someone named JJ Bleday, and this is absolutely wonderful, and he got two of Oakland’s four hits, while only contributing one of their 13 strikeouts.
How about Shane Bieber for another Cy Young? He was electric all spring, electric on Thursday, and he looks fully recovered from the elbow issues that bugged him most of last year. His fastball velocity was up a bit, which was good to see, but it was his cutter that nobody could touch.
Sure, I’m a Belieber.
Can I repeat how much I love the name JJ Bleday? I do suspect that the A’s will have many a bleh-day this season.
Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!
Diamondbacks 16, Rockies 1
Key takeaway: Eight different Diamondbacks had two hits—the only starter to not get two hits was Corbin Carroll, who did walk twice—and this one was a laugher.… The Rockies pitchers will want to avoid those 14-run innings in the future.
The Diamondbacks became the fourth team in modern baseball history to score 14 runs in a single inning and the first to ever do it on Opening Day. The other three:
The 1953 Red Sox scored 17 runs in a 23-3 June destruction of the Tigers… Sammy White, Gene Stephens, Johnny Lipon and George Kell each batted three times in that single inning, as Boston got 14 hits (including a double and a home run), six walks (one intentional) and a stolen base.
The 1996 Rangers scored 16 runs in the eighth inning of their 26-7 victory over the Orioles in April. Kevin Elster hit a grand slam, Dean Palmer hit a three-run homer, three different Orioles pitchers walked eight Rangers hitters, none of them intentionally.
The 1952 Dodgers scored 15 first-inning runs in a 19-1 victory over Cincinnati in May. Duke Snider homered, Jackie Robinson doubled and was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded; the Reds tried four different pitchers.
And then, on Thursday, the Diamondbacks scored 14 in the third inning on 13 hits, three of them doubles. This had to be the most painful kind of rally, just hit after hit after hit. Jalen Beeks (Beeks!) came into the game with two outs and a runner on first and he got Alek Thomas to ground out. So he got his man.
Red Sox 6, Mariners 4
Key takeaway: Tyler O’Neill homered for the fifth consecutive Opening Day, which is wild, and the Red Sox took an early lead and just held on to it… Not a whole lot happening with the Mariners for the home opener, but Mitch Haniger is back with the club, and he did homer.
I’ve been thinking that the Red Sox might have gotten a steal when they traded for Tyler O’Neill. I just think O’Neill was so good in 2021—I picked him as the best leftfielder in baseball that year—and the last couple years have been drowned out by injuries and general Cardinals drama. It seems to me that he’s a top-level candidate for a big comeback season.
Not that you can tell from his Opening Day homer—O’Neill ALWAYS homers on Opening Day.
In 2020, it was the weird Opening Day in July because of COVID, but he blasted a home run off the Pirates’ Joe Musgrove.
In 2021, he hit it off Cam Bedrosian in Cincinnati.
In 2022, he hit it against Pittsburgh again, this time off JT Brubaker, who sounds totally like a 1970s television detective, no? “Brubaker, I’m not talking!”
In 2023, the Cardinals played the Blue Jays on Opening Day, and he hit it off Alek Manoah.
And this time, he hit it in Seattle off Cody Bolton.
Other Stuff
I’m going to be in Ottawa, Kansas, on Friday, April 5, speaking at the Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference. I’m not the only keynote speaker, either; Steve Lyons will be speaking, too.
I’m knee-deep in final copyedits for WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, and I have to say, perhaps immodestly, that I absolutely love this book. I wanted it to have the same energy and love as the baseball book, but I wanted it to feel distinctly like football. I kind of feel like I got it. I can’t wait for you to see it.
Reminder, you can preorder WWLF from the good folks at Quail Ridge Books, and I’ll not only sign it, but I will inscribe it any way you like. This offer will be going on until Father’s Day.
I’m going to extend the 20% off sale for a one-year JoeBlogs subscription through the weekend.
JoeBlogs Week in Review
Saturday: No. 17: Cleveland Guardians.
Monday: No. 16: San Francisco Giants and No. 15: San Diego Padres.
Tuesday: No. 14: Arizona Diamondbacks and No. 13: St. Louis Cardinals.
Wednesday: No. 12: Texas Rangers and No. 11: Chicago Cubs.
Thursday: No. 10: New York Yankees.
Especially useful for a Red Sox fan when they play on the West coast. I also suggest you cover only Yankee losses.
My favorite Vlad Jr. stat is that his 2021 was so out of character insane that it has caused his triple slash to rise to the point, where his career triple slash is better than every other season of his career.