Adley Rutschman for the Orioles today; 5 for 5, a bomb, 4 RBIs, Baltimore beats Boston 10-9. Man, the dude can play.
Brewers lost to the Cubs, 4-0, in their opener; Milwaukee’s ace, Corbin Burnes, had one bad inning, but that was enough.
2:21 game length. The pitch clock works!
Edit: Even that Orioles / Red Sox game, with 26 hits, and 10 pitching changes, only lasted 3:10; last year, that would have easily been over 3 1/2 hours.
32 strikeouts!
32? I guess I was only counting the starters. And it was 39 degrees.
Great opening day. Judge is on pace for 162 HR and 324 RBI. Gerrit Cole looked pretty sharp. And the umpires are no longer advertising for crypto.
I’m somewhat excited that the Mariners, on paper at least, seem to have the strongest team they’ve ever had before. That’s a pretty low bar, for sure, but just the same, they should be really good. They finished strong last year, not just making the postseason for the first time in decades but doing fairly well, and they seem to have become stronger in the offseason with some good additions to the roster.
An hour and a half until their opening game against Cleveland, let’s see how they start.
Better than 2001? 
Yes, maybe not with a better regular season record (clearly) but hopefully doing better in the playoffs.
And Stroman was the first pitcher to have a pitch-clock violation.
Every game was shorter than it would have been last year. Even the two 10-9 games were over three hours, but I’m certain they would have been longer last year.
Great stats via Sports Illustrated.
| 2022 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Average runs per game | 9.66 | 8.47 |
| Average time of game | 3:20 | 2:45 |
| Average minutes per run | 20.7 | 19.5 |
| Games < three hours | 2 | 10 |
Average game time was 25 minutes quicker. Holy crap that is awesome.
I also found out I might be able to stream YES finally, though for $25 per month. I am seriously considering it. MLB.TV is useless to me as I live in market.
The pedant in me wishes to point out that that’s 35 minutes faster. The cynic in me wishes to point out that MLB is probably looking into selling more commercial time in each game.
I think this is why I don’t have a lot of friends.
35 is correct. I’m not having a good morning.
Longer inning breaks for TV commercials would be a terrible thing. I can fast forward past them at home, but in person would be so frustrating. Especially since the stadium people think a moment without buzz and bells is a moment wasted. I wouldn’t mind if we could sit quietly and contemplate life.
The Rays unleashed a bannner celebrating their wild card!! A bit much, in my opinion
I’m not one to shy away from making predictions. Mine is Padres over Blue Jays to win the Series. Since my predictions are never correct, I’ve just tanked both those teams’ chances.
I don’t believe there’s any rules about uniform numbers. I do know Eddie Gaedel, the midget, wore 1/8. I don’t see any reason for a player not to wear 5 2/3 as a number, 106, -2 or even a letter. The likely scenario, in particular the Yankees if they keep retiring numbers, is that someone is going to wear a 3-digit number one day. I think this may have happened in spring training.
So far there has been no one to wear a 3 digit number, even in spring. The use of 70-99 has increased greatly though in the last 20 years. Not to mention Aaron Judge is going to ride 99 to the retirement with a little luck.
I mostly agree about your worthiness scale.
Munson, just because he died tragically? Not a reason for me. He played about 10 years. I haven’t checked but you need to see if those years compared to the standard of Yogi. OK, nobody (or almost nobody) can match Yogi. But I don’t recall Munson being compared to Bench or Carter when all three were playing. Being captain is interesting, an honor in baseball unlike hockey which is an official title. I did not realize the Yankees had no captains for so long after Gehrig.
Elston Howard. Again, just because he was the first black Yankee? He was good and even a year or two he was great (I use OPS+ as a barometer). But not enough for me to merit this honor.
Rizzuto, below average player. I get it’s because he was in the booth for so long. But a retired number should be for the best of the best players on your team, not for being admired as a broadcaster. You should have a separate category for non-players.
Martin I’m guessing is because he was a manager, not a great player, far from it. Just one championship in five seasons a Yankee skipper. I agree with you.
What, no George Constanza?