MLB Opening Day 2023 is in the books. All 15 teams started their season on Thursday and gave us an entertaining day of baseball. For those who didn’t get to experience Opening Day in its full glory, or for those who simply want to relive what might be the best day of the baseball season of the whole year: you’re in luck, we’re here to wrap up all of the events surrounding the Majors by using a handy dandy subtitle format.
Let us begin.
The judge leads the Yankees to victory on opening day
One way or another, Aaron Judge would be at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day. Either he’d re-sign as a free agent with the Yankees this past offseason and get a hero’s welcome, or he’d sign with his hometown-like Giants and sit in the visitors’ dugout. Judge, of course, returned to New York and was named the 16th Captain in franchise history.
On Thursday, Judge led the Yankees to a win over the Giants with a solo home run in the first inning and a bloop hit in the seventh inning. Logan Webb is death for righties and he allowed a home run in his last 10 starts last season, but Judge took him deep in his first at-bat of the new season. In fact, it was the first home run of the 2023 season in the entire league.
Webb and Gerrit Cole set new franchise opening day records on Thursday. Webb fanned out 12 batters in six innings, breaking the record previously assisted by Madison Bumgarner (11 in 2017). Cole batted 11 in six innings, breaking Tim Leary’s record (nine in 1991). All told, there were 32 strikeouts in Thursday’s game — 16 by each team. Contact came first.
Mets improve opening day record
The most successful opening day team in history added another win to their tally this year. The Mets improved their all-time Opening Day record to 41-21 (.661) with Thursday’s win over the Marlins thanks to Brandon Nimmo’s seventh inning double in two runs. Here are the best records on opening day:
The Mets lost Edwin Díaz closer during the World Baseball Classic due to a likely season-ending knee injury, and manager Buck Showalter said he would shuffle and pass in the ninth inning rather than call a closer set. On opening day, the saving opportunity went to veteran late-inning reliever David Robertson, who had a clean 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts.
The Mets have already lost two starting pitchers (José Quintana and Justin Verlander) and their keeper (Díaz), leaving them with a bit of a mishap here to start the new season. It was Nimmo and Robertson who rose Thursday, and the Mets improved on baseball’s best record on opening day.
Ohtani Ks 10 vs Athletics
The Angels’ two-way phenom, Shohei Ohtani, made the most of his opening-day start against the Athletics. In six innings, he held Oakland on two hits and three walks against no runs. He also knocked out 10 batters, including the top three batters in the A order, a total of four times in seven at-bats. As a batter, Ohtani went 1 for 3 with two strikeouts to start the night.
Ohtani left with a 1-0 lead that his teammates couldn’t hold, losing 2-1 to the Athletics.
White Sox end winning streak on Astros opening day
For the first time since 2012, the Astros are losers on opening day. Andrew Vaughn’s clutch in the ninth inning with two runs and a go-ahead double on Ryan Pressly spoiled the World Series celebration at Minute Maid Park. Dylan Cease was the star of the game, hitting 11 in 6 1/3 innings with one-run ball. Cease was wonderful.
The Astros had won each of their last 10 opening days, tied with the 1887-96 Boston Beaneaters for the longest opening-day winning streak in baseball history. The last time Houston lost opening day they were playing in the NL Central, JD Martinez started in left field, Carlos Lee started at first base and Yordan Alvarez was 15 years old. Yes, it’s been a while.
White Sox rookie manager Pedro Grifol picked up his first career win in his first career game. That’s always neat. Always nice to start the season with a win. The teams from Chicago took a 2-0 lead on the first day of the new season.
deGrom falters but Rangers rally wins
Jacob deGrom’s first start with Rangers since signing a five-year deal over the winter hasn’t been smooth sailing. Instead, he gave up the worst six extra base hits of his career and failed to go through four innings.
Still, deGrom’s new teammates were able to overcome his unusually poor efforts as Rangers defeated the reigning NL champions Phillies 11-7.
The Rangers did almost all of their damage in a nine-run fourth inning that saw the score swing from 5-0 for the Phillies to 9-5 Rangers. Jonah Heim, Robbie Grossman, Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis García all contributed. Brad Miller later capped the Rangers’ goal with a two-run shot in the fifth.
You can read more about deGrom’s outing by clicking here.
Fried and Verlander injured
Two aces were lost through injury on opening day, one pre-game and one mid-game. First, the Mets announced that Justin Verlander was placed on the injured list with a low-grade Teres major muscle. The teres major is a small back muscle located near the shoulder. The Mets have not announced how long Verlander will be sidelined.
Then a few hours later, Braves lefter Max Fried left his opening-day start with a hamstring injury. He sustained the injury that covered first base. He will likely be placed on the injured list and it’s unclear how much time Fried will be missing. Here is the piece:
The Mets defeat Verlander and José Quintana (rib), the Braves defeat Fried and Kyle Wright (shoulder), and the Phillies defeat Ranger Suárez (forearm) and Andrew Painter (elbow). It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the NL East rotations. The team that best overcomes these injuries early in the season will put themselves in the best position to win the division.
rutschman opens the season in style
Orioles catcher Adleyrutschman made the most of his first opening day by intimidating the Red Sox pitching team en route to becoming the first catcher in MLB history to record five hits in Game 1.
rutschman hit a solo home run in the top of the first to set the Orioles up early. He later delivered four singles and three more runs in a 10-9 win.
rutschman, the 2019 draft pick, had a stellar rookie season last year. In 113 games, he hit .254/.362/.445 (128 OPS+) with 13 home runs. He came second in voting for the AL Rookie of the Year Award. If he continues to play like he did Thursday, he’ll make his first career All-Star Game later this summer.
Blue Jays outfielder George Springer also scored five, This marks the first opening day of two five-hit performances since at least 1901.
Volpe, Yoshida, Walker, Cola’s Debut
This wasn’t justrutschman’s first opening day. Several players made their big league debuts Thursday, including Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, Red Sox outfielder Masataka Yoshida, Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker and White Sox outfielder Oscar Colas.
Volpe didn’t score, but he walked and stole a base as part of a Yankees win. Yoshida, on the other hand, rapped two singles in a Red Sox loss. The Cardinals also lost, although Walker had one hit and one run. Debuting in pinch-hit fashion, Colas garnered his first big league single.
New rules
How predictable, the new rules – the pitch timer; larger bases; and defensive limitations – actually impacted the game. The games were shorter and the attempts at stolen bases were high. You can read more about it by clicking here.
You can also relive all of CBS Sports’ live blog goodness from all of opening day below.