BASEBALL IS FINALLY HERE.
With Opening Day being pushed back due to the Coronavirus, and then the endless back and forth between players and owners. It is great to see baseball again.
Starting the season with the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees couldn’t have been better. It was the 2019 World Series champs facing off against the team most likely to make it to the World Series out of the American League.
The game certainly did not disappoint. Two of the best pitchers in the league facing off on opening day in Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole, the game was set to be a great pitching duel.
Giancarlo Stanton and Adam Eaton had something to say about that. Both hit homers in the first inning, showing these hitters have stayed in shape through the quarantine. Stanton hit a long two-run shot into left-center in the first, putting the Yankees up two.
Later in the same inning, Eaton took a 98 MPH fastball from Cole straight over the right-field wall.
Eaton’s home run would go down as the only hit allowed by Cole in his five innings of work. Along with that, Cole would strike out five. For the Nationals, Scherzer had 11 strikeouts in 5.1 innings of work. Many of them coming with his filthy slider. However, the Yankee hitters still put up four runs and six hits off the Nationals ace.
On the Yankee side, Stanton and Aaron Judge both went 2 for 3 and drove in all four runs. Stanton did the bulk of the work, driving in 3 while Judge drove in 1. Tyler Wade also laid down a perfect bunt in the top of the 5th that would lead to the final run in the game driven in by Stanton. Wade has been trying to make his stamp in the big leagues for the past few seasons, and if he keeps making plays like that, he could be here to stay.
The Nationals struggled to get on base with their only base runners coming from a walk and a hit batter. Juan Soto was a late scratch after testing positive for the Coronavirus earlier in the day, and the lineup struggled without him. With Anthony Rendon moving on to the Angels in the winter, the Nationals pitching needs to carry the team to wins in their title defense. It could be due to the pitcher quality they were facing in Cole and missing Soto, but the bats did not look great.
The game was called in the top of the 6th due to rain, leading to the Yankees anticlimactic win. At least we got to see meaningful live baseball once again. It was a game that had homers, good fundamental baseball, and great pitching. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this MLB season turns out. With just 60 games, every game will be important.
