MLB Opening Day: What we learned on day one of the season

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KANSAS CITY, MO – MARCH 29: Matt Davidson /

What can we learn from an MLB Opening Day that brought blowouts and nail-biters, successes and failures, wins and losses?

After a long, dark winter, baseball fans across the country (except in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Washington) were able to enjoy real baseball once again. We saw the pomp and circumstance of MLB Opening Day. There were dignitaries throwing out first pitches and bunting decorating stadiums across the land. Many pitching aces toed the rubber for the first time in games that actually count in the standings. It was a wonderful day of baseball for most fans.

For the first time in 50 years, MLB scheduled every team for an MLB Opening Day game, but rainouts in Cincinnati and Detroit prevented the Reds, Nationals, Pirates, and Tigers from playing. The Tigers took advantage of the wet weather by avoiding a loss and moving ahead of the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central.

Enjoy it, Tiger fans, because it won’t last long. The rain in Cincinnati prevented Max Scherzer from starting on MLB Opening Day like fellow pitching Mount Rushmore members Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, and Corey Kluber.

So, what did we learn from MLB Opening Day? Nothing. It was one game. In baseball, one game is like a grain of sand on a vast, expansive beach. It’s fun to project Giancarlo Stanton to hit 324 home runs this year because he launched two taters in his New York Yankees debut, but even the most optimistic Yankee fans know that’s not going to happen.

MLB Opening Day is the water poured into your glass at the beginning of a seven-course meal. It’s just a little taste of what’s to come. And while Opening Day didn’t tell us anything of importance, plenty of interesting things happened around the league.

Davidson’s dingers

The best all-around players in baseball are said to have five tools. These players can run, field, throw, hit, and hit for power. Perhaps the greatest of the five-tool players is Willie May. Or it could be Oscar Charleston. It is not Matt Davidson. Matt Davidson has one tool. He can hit for power. He used that tool to launch three home runs on Opening Day.

Davidson hit his three home runs off three different pitchers. His teammates added three more to help the White Sox tie the 1988 New York Mets for the Opening Day record of six home runs by one team. It’s an excellent start for Davidson, but don’t hand him the AL MVP trophy just yet. He’s projected to have a .270 OBP and .397 slugging percentage this season.

Before Matt Davidson, there was Dmitri Young, who hit three homers on Opening Day in 2005. He’s the Opening Day legend for the Millennial generation. Not only did Young hit three home runs, but he also reached base in his two other plate appearances by hitting a single and getting hit by a pitch. He scored four times and had five RBI.

The Baby Boomers have two Opening Day heroes, George Bell and the immortal Tuffy Rhodes. On April 4, 1988, Bell launched three taters off Kansas City Royals ace Bret Saberhagen. He followed that up with a five-for-five performance in the second game of the season, making him eight-for-nine with six runs scored and five RBI through the Blue Jays’ first two games. That was the high point of his season. In his remaining games, he hit .260/.296/.421.

Tuffy Rhodes became a Cubs legend when he launched three big flies off Dwight Gooden on Opening Day in 1994. This wasn’t vintage Gooden, of course. By this time, Gooden was a nearly a decade removed from his incredible 24-4, 1.53 ERA season in 1985. Still, Dwight Gooden is Dwight Gooden and Rhodes’ big game has lived on in Cubs fans’ memories to this day.

After hitting three home runs on Opening Day, Rhodes would hit just five more over the rest of the year and be out of MLB after the 1995 season. He went over to Japan and found success, including four straight seasons in which he hit 55, 46, 51, and 45 home runs. That 55-homer season tied the all-time record held by Japanese legend Sadaharu Oh. In 2013, Wladimir Belentien would smash the record with a 60-homer season.

Upsets, upsets, upsets!

Everything you thought you knew about which teams are good and which teams are bad was upended today. Well, maybe not everything, but there were plenty of upsets. The A’s beat the Angels. The lowly Tampa Bay Rays beat the AL East defending champion Boston Red Sox. The rebuilding Braves beat the further-along-in-their rebuild Philadelphia Phillies. The White Sox crushed six home runs and beat the Royals, 14-7.

In Baltimore, the Orioles walked off Twins closer Fernando Rodney on a game-winning shot by Adam Jones in the eleventh. The Mets didn’t need a walk-off homer to beat the Cardinals, 9-4. They jumped all over Cardinal ace Carlos Martinez, with number two hitter Yoenis Cespedes knocking in three runs and leadoff man Brandon Nimmo scoring twice.

A few aces took losses today. The Giants beat Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers on a solo home run by Joe Panik. This was unusual in many ways. One, the Dodgers are much better than the Giants. Two, Kershaw rarely gives up home runs to left-handed hitters. And three, Joe Panik very very rarely hits home runs against left-handed pitchers. In 506 previous plate appearances against lefties, Panik had a grand total of two home runs.

The Seattle Mariners beat defending AL Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber. All it took was a 2-run home run by Nelson Cruz, 5.3 shutout innings by Felix Hernandez, four middle relievers allowing one run in 2.7 innings, and a shaky save from Edwin Diaz that included two hit batters, a balk, and three strikeouts. Expect to see more of this type of game, Mariner fans. Starting pitchers will not be asked to go much beyond five or six innings, and relievers will be used liberally.

Trout makes outs

It was a rough MLB Opening Day for Mike Trout. He grounded out to short in his first at-bat and flied out to right in his second. After Zack Cozart homered to make it 4-0 Angels, Trout grounded out to third in the top of the fifth. The seventh inning brought a foul out to first and Trout was sitting on an 0-for-4. With the score tied in the tenth, Trout led off with a fly out to center and was now 0-for-5.

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Trout’s worst plate appearance came in the top of the 11^th, with the score still tied at five. A two-out single by Martin Maldonado lit a spark and Zack Cozart kept it going with an infield single to put runners on first-and-second. Surely the great Mike Trout would come through with a go-ahead knock? Nope. He struck out swinging. Then the A’s pushed a run across the plate in the bottom of the inning for an Opening Day victory.

In seven seasons and 925 career games, Mike Trout had never gone 0-for-6 until today. He’s been 0-for-5 fourteen times. He was 1-for-6 once. He was even 1-for-8 one time, back on April 29, 2013, when the Angels lost to Oakland in 19 innings. Fittingly, Trout’s 0-for-6 showing today was also in an extra-innings loss to the A’s.

It could be the Coliseum. Coming into today’s game, Trout had a career batting line of .306/.410/.566, but had hit just .266/.351/.528 at the Coliseum. I mean, that’s still a great batting line, but it’s much worse than he’s hit most everywhere else.

Next: The good, the bad, and the ugly - Opening Day

Trout took it in stride, though. After the game, he posted a picture of his beautiful wife on his Instagram story with the caption, “Tough one today but she makes me feel better . . . tomorrow is a new day!” Indeed it is, Mike Trout, indeed it is.

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