MLB: The biggest moments of the Opening Day weekend
Baseball is finally back! 2022 is underway and the opening series of MLB action was full of great moments. There were walk-offs, debuts, late-inning no-hit bids, and more. Here’s a look at the biggest moments of the first week of baseball.
Best and worst team performances from the MLB Opening Day weekend
29 Major League Baseball teams got a win over the first few days of the season and those same 29 MLB teams each scored a total of at least eight runs. That one outlier — surprise, surprise — was the Baltimore Orioles. The hapless Orioles scored only four runs in their first three games, getting swept by the Tampa Bay Rays. Long-suffering Baltimore fans may have to “wait ‘til next year.”
It would be easy to pick the Rays as the team with the best week, but they’re supposed to beat up on teams like the Orioles. I give my nod to the New York Mets. The Metropolitans took three of four from the Washington Nationals and outscored them by 11 runs in the process. All four starting pitchers tossed at least five innings and left with the lead. The Nationals aren’t exactly juggernauts but, after all the money invested in the team this season, this is about as good of an opening series as they could have hoped for.
Best hitting games from MLB Opening Day weekend
There were a number of big hits over the first few games and I’ll get to a few of those later. With the offensive explosion the Cleveland Guardians put up on Sunday, there were a lot of options for best individual games just from that team alone. These three performances stood out in the first week.
- Nolan Arenado, April 8 – 4-for-4, 3 doubles, 3 RBI and 2 runs scored
- Steven Kwan, April 10 – 5-for-5, 4 runs scored and a double
- Jose Ramirez, April 10 – 3-for-4, home run, double, 3 RBI and 3 runs scored
The worst hitting game belonged, however, to Yoshi Tsutsugo.
There were a handful of times where a player struck out four times. Giancarlo Stanton had one, but he also homered in the same game. The most futile performance of the week goes to Tsutsugo, who went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts and an infield pop-up. Despite his performance out of the clean-up spot, the Pittsburgh Pirates got their first win of the season and somehow put up nine runs.
Best pitching performances from MLB Opening Day weekend
It is hard to argue against Sean Manaea’s performance in his San Diego Padres debut. He somehow managed to one-up teammate Yu Darvish, who also didn’t allow a hit in his first start of the season. Manaea and Kyle Gibson get the nod for their sheer dominance. Darvish pitched well but walked four batters and only struck out three while Manaea and Gibson each faced just one batter more than the minimum.
- Sean Manaea, April 8 – 7 innings, 0 hits, 1 BB, and 7 K
- Kyle Gibson, April 9 – 7 innings, 2 hits, 0 BB, and 10 K
The worst pitched game could well belong to Brandon Woodruff.
Woodruff has been one of the best pitchers in the National League over the past three seasons. The two-time All-Star has demonstrated excellent control while striking out more than 10 batters per nine innings. Saturday, was a different story. Woodruff was wild, hitting two batters and walking three and giving up seven earned runs in just 3.2 innings. After a rough spring for the 29-year-old, this was not the start Milwaukee was looking for.
The best MLB debut goes to Bobby Witt Jr.
The much-heralded prospect made his Major League Baseball debut in epic fashion. After starting the game 0-for-3, the rookie came to the plate with two outs in the eighth inning with the score tied and a man on and laced a run-scoring double down the line for his first big league hit. He later came around to score as the Royals won 3-1.
The best moment of the Opening Day weekend was a Seth Beer walk-off
According to FanGraphs, entering the bottom of the ninth inning on Opening Day, the San Diego Padres had a 2-0 lead and a 91.7% chance of winning the game. Robert Suarez loaded the bases with two walks and a hit batsman and Craig Stammen came in to face Seth Beer. Stammen’s first pitch was wild and scored Christian Walker. The next pitch was tattooed by Beer over the right field wall for a walk-off, on National Beer Day, no less.
The longest Home Run belonged to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Guerrero tied Salvador Perez for the American League home run title in 2021, so it’s no surprise that he would hit a bomb during the first weekend of baseball. Vlad’s first home run of 2022 was an awesome 467-foot bomb to the second deck of the Rogers center. The blast had an exit velocity of 117.9 mph which, according to Nick Aguilera at Baseball Savant, is the hardest-hit home run in the history of the Blue Jays since Statcast tracking began in 2015.
The best game of the weekend was the Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers on Friday
The best game of Opening Weekend was Friday’s thriller between the White Sox and Tigers. The bottom of the eighth was when things got interesting. With the White Sox leading 3-1, Aaron Bummer loaded the bases and was replaced with two outs by closer Liam Hendriks. Miguel Cabrera came to the plate and on the first pitch, he looped a two-run single to center.
In the ninth, the White Sox got back the lead on an Andrew Vaughan home run down the left-field line. In the bottom half of the inning with Hendriks still on the mound, Eric Haase, who entered the game in the eighth inning, evened it up at four with a blast of his own. With two outs, Austin Meadows tripled and the stage was set for Javy Baez to play the hero in his Detroit Tigers debut.
Baez hit a long fly ball to the wall in right that looked like it had been caught by A.J. Pollock but, after a Detroit challenge, replay showed that the ball hit the wall before hitting Pollock’s glove and the Tigers won 5-4.
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