Baseball is back in all its glory. The big flags over the outfield, the flybys over the stadiums, the Angels losing in both heartbreaking and humiliating fashion. We waited so long and now we wonder why we do this to ourselves.
The Angels have now lost 11 of the last 12 Opening Day contests. 1 out of 162 doesn’t normally mean much, but this one really gave out 2024 vibes. That said, we have another one tomorrow.
And, besides, if we are being honest with ourselves 2025 is another extended Spring Training year that is all about watching young kids develop and trading off what we can to get more young kids. And the kids did OK yesterday.
Ryan Johnson went from Dallas Baptist University straight to MLB and brought some wicked stuff with him for an inning. Unfortunately, he tried to pitch 2 innings.
And Logan O’Hoppe cracked a solo home run to prevent a shutout.
Just 5 more consecutive Opening Day home runs until he catches Tyler O’Neill, who homered yesterday to extend his Opening Day home run streak. Six openers in a row is pretty incredible.
Prior to the game, the Angels finalized their 26 man roster. Kyren Paris made the cut but didn’t get to play. In his place, Tim Anderson and Kevin Newman combined to go 0 for 6 with 3 strikeouts, all by Anderson.
Newly crowned Angels ace Yusei Kikuchi had a pretty solid day. He went 6 innings and gave up 3 runs, two of which came on a blooper that found the perfect place to land. There’s wasn’t much hard contact against him and he kept his pitch count very reasonable.
The good news is the Angels will definitely not lose today. And if you are hankering for some baseball, UC Santa Barbara visits Long Beach state with Tyler Bremner starting for the Gauchos. Pick up a ticket or look for ESPN+ to stream the game.
As for the remaining 161 games, the staff laid out our predictions this week.
Fangraphs also did a prediction piece, and it appears we are on the same page.
From around baseball:
The Giants and Reds played a thrilling game highlighted by Wilmer Flores 2 out, 3 run homer in the top of the 9th. San Francisco entered the final frame trailing 3 to 2 and put up a 4 spot.
The late inning heroics in Cincy were one upped by the first walk of of the year down in Miami.
Jose Soriano takes the bump Saturday to try to get this team back to .500. I have a gamethread ready to roll. In the meantime, enjoy all the baseball insanity and March Madness.
I will leave you with this: my 5 to 7 year old Angels are the cutest bunch in history. We decided to do walk up music for the kids to make it more fun. My son is a huge fan of classical music decided to go with Darth Vader’s theme. A couple of games ago he strolled up to the plate with that music going and the bases loaded and cracked the game winning hit. Hilarious and epic at the same time.
Baseball is fun. Or at least it should be. Link what I missed and enjoy your weekend.
