Baseball opening game

By Dayn Perry. Aug 4, at pm ET 1 min read. Getty Images. Here are all 15 Opening Day games for Astros vs. Phillies A's vs. Angels Mariners vs. Tigers Rangers vs.

Yankees Cleveland Guardians vs. Royals White Sox vs. Twins Orioles vs. Blue Jays Red Sox vs. Rays Brewers vs. Diamondbacks Dodgers vs. Rockies Padres vs. Giants Reds vs. Nobody in baseball teases and tantalizes like Buxton, the one-time top prospect in baseball whose dueling injuries and ineffectiveness get downplayed by his sheer talent on days like Thursday.

The Twins, even without Josh Donaldson, who tweaked a hamstring running the bases in his first at-bat, are a good team. It wasn't just the home run. Buxton walked twice. He stole a base. He patrolled center field with the range and accuracy of a well-calibrated drone.

The threat of his arm prompted runners to hold at bases. It was the quintessential Buxton showing: the bat, the legs, the glove, the arm. Yes, it's one game. Buxton has done this before. Last year, he hit 13 home runs in 39 games For him to match his entire-season total in one game was a pleasant surprise, though it's one that registers second on his list of achievements for the day.

That home run -- the longest of his career -- was possibility personified. Opening Day is the day for dreamers, and there is perhaps no one better in baseball to dream on than Byron Buxton. Ke'Bryan Hayes looks like the real deal. Pirates rookie phenom Ke'Bryan Hayes picked up where he left off in spring training, where he hit. On Thursday, he took Kyle Hendricks deep in his first at-bat in the first inning, once again showing the baseball world why he's a favorite to win Rookie of the Year in the NL.

In just 24 games during the shortened season, Hayes gave us a taste of what he could be: a dynamic offensive and defensive player, and nothing seen so far has changed that perception. Hayes added a walk later, but his two-run home run in the first inning was the difference in the Pirates' win over the Cubs.

Hayes looks like the real deal. The Reds' grand experiment of deploying third basemen at shortstop and second base got off to a rocky start when the Cardinals scored two runs on a Eugenio Suarez error. It didn't help that the Cardinals were in the midst of knocking around Reds ace Luis Castillo for six first-inning runs. And it certainly didn't help that it was Suarez's first fielding chance during a real game since his much-scrutinized, late-spring move from the hot corner to shortstop.

On the play in question, the Cardinals had a run in, the bases loaded, and one out. Yadier Molina chopped one to Suarez, who had to move a couple of steps to backhand the ball. With the slow-footed Molina running, a rally-killing double play might have been on Suarez's mind. Instead, as he tried to make a quick transfer from glove to throwing hand, Suarez lost his grip on the ball, which fluttered out to left field as two runs scored.

Shortly thereafter, St. Louis' Dylan Carlson cranked a three-run homer off the right-field foul pole and the Cardinals were on their way to the six-spot. Suarez also committed an error on his second chance, when he backhanded a grounder from Paul Goldschmidt and buried a throw that skipped past first baseman Joey Votto in the second inning. The Reds battled over the rest of the game, but a six-run gap is hard to close. Suarez converted his last three fielding chances to end up with a fielding percentage of.

He also hit a home run, but the lingering question remains: How long can the Reds stick with this experiment? No longer. Glasnow cemented himself at the top of the Tampa Bay rotation. Glasnow, 27, went six innings against the Marlins, allowing no runs and one hit while striking out six with no walks.

Glasnow added a slider this offseason that he put on full showcase, accounting for 26 of his pitches. Paired with his electric mph fastball, the new breaking pitch gives the Rays' righty an extra tool to keep hitters off balance. The Padres hadn't officially announced a closer, but Mark Melancon finished off the victory with Emilio Pagan pitching the seventh and Drew Pomeranz the eighth, so take note, fantasy owners. There have been some concerns about the San Diego bullpen, especially with a few projected key relievers on the injured list, but the Padres stockpiled plenty of good arms.

Add in Keone Kela tossing a scoreless sixth inning, and the final four relievers combined to allow two hits over the final four scoreless frames. Of bigger concern was the performance of both starting pitchers.

Yu Darvish was given the Opening Day start for his Padres debut and couldn't get through five innings even though he entered the inning with a lead. He was visibly and understandably frustrated that he couldn't get that third out of the fifth. Given the health issues of Dinelson Lamet elbow and Blake Snell's questionable durability history, the Padres need a big season from Darvish.

It took him more than a year before he settled in with the Cubs, but the Padres are counting on him to be their ace -- from the get-go. As for the Diamondbacks, Madison Bumgarner did nothing to assuage concerns about his future, after he went with a 6.

He allowed six runs and seven hits, including home runs to Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers , in four innings. After averaging 88 mph on his fastball last year, at least he averaged The Royals won a long, messy game over the Rangers at home that required them to overcome a five-run Texas first, which they erased in the bottom of the first, then another three-run deficit a couple of innings later.

The first inning was historic, if not aesthetic, as Elias reported that it was the first time in an Opening Day contest in which both teams scored at least five first-inning runs. The slog continued for four hours and 26 minutes and featured 17 walks, three errors all by the Rangers , a wild pitch, two passed balls, three hit batters and a hitter Jorge Soler who reached on catcher's interference. Yet, for Kansas City, it was a beautiful lid-lifter in its own way. The Royals were refreshingly aggressive during the offseason, with KC's Opening Day lineup featuring four position players making their debuts for the team.

They all contributed to the win:. Andrew Benintendi overcame a first-inning gaffe in which he allowed three runs to score by diving and whiffing on a sinking liner off the bat of Texas' Nate Lowe. Benintendi made a fine play on a foul pop shortly after that and ended up reaching base a couple of times and scoring two runs.

Carlos Santana did exactly what the Royals acquired him to do. He walked three times, worked at-bats of epic lengths, singled and scored two runs. Michael A. Taylor homered, singled twice and drove in three runs. He also threw out two baserunners from center field, both on throws that Statcast registered at over 95 mph.

Royals center fielders had only one assist all of last season. Rookie Kyle Isbel singled three times and drove in two. He also had a couple of chances to showcase the speed on the basepaths that made him a fairly surprising addition to the Royals' roster.

With the win, the Royals accomplished something they had not done in almost exactly two years. They finished a game with a record over. It's a start. Yes, there were boos from the crowd of 10, or so in Oakland, with the loudest ones directed at Astros third baseman Alex Bregman. Zack Greinke did a lot to silence the A's fans, however, and then Bregman himself delivered a final message that perhaps suggests the Astros will put their offensive woes of behind them.

Opening Day hasn't been kind to Greinke. A pitch clock is probably coming in some form. After its hostile takeover of the minor leagues, MLB has experimented with rule changes at several levels. In the Low-A West league, it implemented a second pitch clock for and shaved 21 minutes off games.

The time limit would likely be tightened gradually, with exceptions or extensions when runners are on base, but a ticking clock in any form would be a start.

The pitch clock may also feed into the search for action. Research has shown that pitchers who take longer between pitches throw those pitches harder. One of the more extreme potential changes is predicated on the same concept.

Significant backlash to the adjustment probably means this idea, however, is not likely to come to the majors any time soon. Instead, look for the new CBA to inject drama and offense a different way: By pushing teams to use starting pitchers more. That could take the form of the double-hook rule that would tie the designated hitter to the starting pitcher — take out your starter, lose your DH. But more likely, it will involve a series of rules that cap the number of pitchers a team can have on the roster and the number of transactions it can make to summon fresh arms from the minors.

The goal is a greater number of games where the traditional protagonists, the starting pitchers, go mano a mano for five, six, seven innings instead of giving way to faceless relievers to avoid seeing the lineup a second or heaven forbid third time.

But the past few seasons have presented that truth too nakedly for comfort. Aces commanding the stage offer a respite from that feeling, or at least tug us into the story and convince us to suspend our disbelief. A starting pitcher gutting out a big strikeout to end the seventh inning equals drama and action.

The quandaries that will determine whether MLB returns on time for spring training in February, and eventually for the regular season in late March, are financial. The rampant innovation and prosperity of the Wild-Card Era has come off the swivel for players in recent years.

They are no longer getting the same share of the spoils, and the team owners are gobbling up more and more money for themselves.

The median salary has taken an even more precipitous drop. Most of that emanates from a massive shift in the sources of production on the field. Under that current system, players are tied to teams for six years of major-league service time — often manipulated into seven seasons for the best players — and limited to the arbitration system or team-friendly extensions to make money during their peak years of productivity.

When they finally reach free agency, teams turn up their noses at the prospect of paying for the future performance of a something. They have instead devoted resources to producing more young, minimally expensive contributors. Adjustments are vitally necessary to more fairly compensate players based on their current level of productivity and at least partially realign the process of building a team with common sense. Any changes in that ilk will encounter massive resistance from team owners represented by MLB who have been reaping huge profits by fielding winning combinations of stars and soon-to-be-stars with tamped-down earnings.

But MLB and the players union are not on good terms. There is an outstanding grievance over the length of the season, which the union contends MLB did not negotiate in good faith.

Animosity between the two sides has been roiling ever since, and despite some quotes gesturing in the direction of optimism, the industry is bracing for a lockout that at the very least interrupts the usual flow of the offseason.

If the stoppage — which would be initiated in this case by owners when the current CBA expires — only disrupts the free agent market and trade season, that would be considered a win. If it only pushes back spring training, that unfortunately might be a win, too. Both sides understand that season-interrupting work stoppages turn off fans. Turned off fans are bad for business. Breaking down the best potential candidate and a few alternatives for the seven current head coach openings in the NFL.

Two Crimson Tide coaches are accepting promotions at there big-time programs.