Let's Get It Started
And Last Night's Premature Congratulations
IT’S OPENING DAY
We have 11 games today. Isn’t that wonderful?
PREMATURE CONGRATULATIONS
The Yankees beat the Giants last night in the Netflix opener, 7-0. Max Fried was great, pitching 6.1 scoreless baseball. “This team led the Majors in runs scored [849] last year, and we have a lot of the same guys back,” Fried said. “One through nine, we can beat you. We obviously have the best player in the world [Aaron Judge] hitting for us, but we also have a lot of really good guys able to support him.”
It’s a good thing the Yanks have a lot of support because Judge got the first Golden Sombrero of the season, striking out four times in five AB. The Yankees took Giants manager Tony Vitello to school in his debut in the pro ranks. They dominated from the 2nd inning on with nine singles, and just one extra-base hit, an RBI triple by Trent Grisham, and aggressive at-bats and aggressive base running.
The Yanks, who led baseball with 274 homers last season, had none. Last season, they played only two games in which they scored at least seven runs without homering, and it took until August for them to have their first.
The Yankees have won five straight Opening Day games for the first time since 1992-96.
JUDGE AND HIS SOMBRERO
Last night, Judge had the 12th Golden Sombrero of his career and his first since July 1, 2024. He has had three Platinum Sombreros, striking out five times in a game with the last one coming on September 28, 2024. Last season, he had 10 games in which he struck out three times.
MISLEADING STAT OF THE GAME
Context is everything when it comes to baseball stats. So, when doofus (present company included) posts a stat, be curious and want to know more. I’d give this advice to any aspiring journalist, particularly a wannabe baseball writer. When a Jayson Stark or a Tim Kurkjian or a Bob Ryan shares a stat or an anecdote, and you wonder why nobody else saw that, it is because they were curious and dug deeper. I will not name names, but there are many well-known and well-paid folks out there who will post stats, and because they ignore the context, their data is pretty but pretty meaningless.
Here is an illustrative example to show what I mean. Granted, it is an extreme, but consider it a teaching tool.
Last night, Max Fried threw 86 pitches, 53 for strikes. The Giants’ starter, Logan Webb, threw 86 pitches, 58 for strikes. What does it tell you? If you guessed it explains why we went to war with Iran, you are as right as anything else you might have guessed. Just looking at those numbers, you would assume that each pitcher pitched equally as well, and, if anything, Webb may have been slightly better.
Fried pitched 6.1 innings, allowing no runs on two hits, walking one, and striking out four.
Webb pitched 5.0 innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on nine hits, walking one, and striking out seven.
Context is everything (or at least, most everything).
AS FOR NETFLIX
Andrew Marchand, in today’s edition of The Athletic, summed it up perfectly: “On Major League Baseball’s Opening Night, Netflix thought we wanted to watch Netflix. Nope, we wanted to watch baseball: the Yankees vs. the Giants. It happened to be on Netflix. It’s that simple.”
My favorite part was when all the clowns came out of the little car.
Actually, I did have some favorite parts. I think Matt Vasgersian is really good at doing play-by-play. He integrates information into context so that the stats don’t seem forced; they seem relevant to the situation. I liked Hunter Pence. CC Sabathia sounded as if he were imitating a color commentator instead of being himself. He needs more work. He should listen to more games with David Cone.
I also thought Netflix had some interesting camera angles, but often the shots were too tight, preventing us from seeing important context. By the way, we really don’t need the umpire-cam from Netflix or any network.
It wasn’t until this morning that I learned that Bert Kreischer is a comedian, not an escapee from Netflix's WWE wrestling. When he yelled, “This is baseball!” and the dancers on taxis and trolley cars appeared, we checked the other programming for a while. I did not, and will not, watch Barry Bonds on any programming unless they promise to show how he can make his head grow and then shrink again (and I’m not referring to his ego, which I doubt will ever shrink to human size).
Speaking of people I would be happy to never see again: Jameis Winston.
Netflix had 73 kayaks in McCovey Cove, representing the number of PED injections Bonds had in the season that he did not legitimately set the home run record. I wonder if those kayaks could get through the Strait of Hormuz during Trump’s war.
I feel bad for friend of Billy-Ball, Lauren Shehadi. In the top of the 5th inning, with José Caballero at bat, she conducted the meaningless in-game interview with Giants’ manager Tony Vitello, which is now seemingly compulsory. While doing it, Netflix missed the very first Automatic Ball-Strike challenge in regular-season history. Not her fault. She does a good job. The folks in the truck screwed this up.
The Netflix bug was embarrassingly awful. You could see the score, but everything else was in mouse type so small that it was distracting and useless.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred joined the broadcast for half an inning. That’s five minutes of life we will never get back. I’m surprised that the lobbed questions on this Netflix commercial-driven show didn’t include asking Manfred who his favorite character was on “Stranger Things.”
I agree with the folks at Awful Announcing who wrote, “Netflix treated Opening Night as a Netflix event that happened to include a baseball game.”
I’m looking forward to Vasgersian on NBC’s broadcast today.
"A home opener is always exciting, no matter if it's home or on the road." - Yogi Berra
HERE’S SOME REALLY GOOD NEWS
If you listen to the pre-game show and the start of this evening’s Dodgers’ radio cast, you will get to hear the great Charley Steiner’s return. I’m so proud to work with him and so happy he is feeling healthy enough to return to the game and the work he loves. Listen to him and Rick Monday work seamlessly together. It’s a baseball joy.
SPEAKING OF THE DODGERS
THE ELUSIVE THREE-PEAT
No team in National League history has ever won three World Series in a row.
