For the fifth straight year and the eighth time in the last nine years, the Yankees are 1-0. Opening Day went so well that I’ll give Netflix a pass for their broadcast being Way Too Much. They gotta take it down about four notches next time. (The scorebug is awful too.) Anyway, the five-year Opening Day winning streak is the fourth longest in Yankees' history behind 1923-29 (seven), 1941-46 (six), and 1955-60 (six).
“You want to get that first win, first hits. You want to get into that normal rhythm of the season, which takes a little bit of time. Obviously it was a great way to start things,” Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch after the game. “… We’ve got a lot to prove. We’re confident in our ability to have good at-bats and put up runs, but we’re one game into this thing. We’ve still got a long ways to go.”
Other than Aaron Judge’s rough night (0-for-5 with four strikeouts), Opening Day really couldn’t have gone much better. The Yankees roughed up a great pitcher, Max Fried settled down and made sure the laugher stayed a laugher, and Trent Grisham had the Yankees’ first Opening Day triple since Johnny Damon in 2009. 2009, you say? Does anyone remember anything else about that season?
The 7-0 win was the largest Opening Day shutout win for the Yankees since an 8-0 win over the Twins in 1988. The 7-0 loss was the Giants’ most lopsided Opening Day loss since moving to San Francisco in 1958, which seems insane, but I double-checked it, and it’s correct. The Run-It-Back Yankees are pretty good, eh? I would watch that 161 more times. Here now are a few thoughts on the Opening Day win.
Swing early, swing often
Logan Webb is as good as any pitcher this side of Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal, and the Yankees had a clear plan to attack early in the count. Webb added strikeouts (career high 26.2 K%) to his typically excellent ground ball rate last season, and one way to avoid strikeouts is to avoid two-strike counts. The Yankees had success doing that by being aggressive early in their at-bats, and it worked masterfully.
The five-run sixth inning (video) included six straight Yankees reaching base with one out. Those six batters saw 2, 1, 3, 3, 1, and 1 pitch. Six of their nine hits against Webb (and seven of their 10 hits in the game) came within the first two pitches of the at-bat. To be fair, Webb made it easy on the Yankees at times. Some of these pitches are right in the middle of the plate. Here are the ball-in-play pitch locations:
“They just started kind of ambushing,” Webb told Maria Guardado. “I threw all the pitches I wanted to throw. Not necessarily where I wanted to throw. They did a good job. I did a bad job.”
When the early count ambush thing works, it’s awfully fun, and the runs pile up quickly. The second inning rally went single, hit-by-pitch, single, single, single, triple in about five minutes. When it doesn’t work, you look up and the opposing starter is at 56 pitches through five innings. The strategy was executed well on Opening Day. Webb throwing some pitches middle-middle certainly helped.
Know what else helped? The Giants punting defense on the right side of the infield. Luis Arraez is a DH playing second base and Casey Schmitt is a third baseman playing first. Does a second baseman with more range than a potted plant knock Ryan McMahon’s two-run single down? I don’t think any second baseman is getting an out here, but keep it on the infield and you save that second run.
Schmitt was unable to scoop Willy Adames’ spiked throw on a 3-6-3 double play attempt in the fifth inning, which allowed the seventh run to score (video). Jazz Chisholm Jr. was safe at first anyway, but the ball getting away from Schmitt allowed Ben Rice to come home. Put the ball in play against poor defenses and good things can happen. (I say while acknowledging the Yankees still struck out 12 times Wednesday.)
“I think guys were just going up there, doing what the game asked them to do, and take their knocks,” McMahon told Hoch. “We put a bunch of balls in play, found a couple of holes, and ended up putting up a good number.”
McMahon and Austin Wells, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, reached base a combined five times, and I thought Wells in particular had really great at-bats, most notably going from a 1-2 count to a nine-pitch walk to lead off the sixth inning. Wells has so much more to give offensively and it’s not often you can say that about a catcher coming off a 21-homer season. I hope we see at-bats that good all summer long.
The five-run second inning was Webb’s first five-run inning since July 22nd, 2023, and it was his first ever five-run inning in 91 career games at Oracle Park. He also didn’t allow seven runs in a start once last season. That’s a really, really good pitcher (my Cy Young pick) the Yankees put a hurtin’ on without a big swing. Everyone in the lineup except Judge (go figure) reached base at least once against Webb.
“On a night when we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark, we had a lot of good pressurized at-bats,” Boone told Hoch. “We can beat you in a lot of different ways.”
The Yankees did not go deep on Opening Day for the first time since 2017, and it was their first homerless Opening Day win since 1992. Only twice last season did the Yankees score at least seven runs without hitting a homer, then they did it on Opening Day this year. I complained as much as anyone about the boring offseason, but it’s a very good and very dangerous lineup. An excellent Opening Day showing on offense.
Fried locks in
Max Fried’s command was wobbly throughout Spring Training, and he walked Arraez on four pitches to lead off Opening Day. The same Luis Arraez who drew seven four-pitch walks all last season. A bloop single Grisham seemingly lost in the sun put runners on the corners with one out in the first inning, and right away, Fried was in a jam. Then he fell behind 2-1 in the count on Adames. It was not great.
Then it clicked. Fried came back to strike out Adames and got Jung Hoo Lee to ground out harmlessly to second base, stranding both runners. Two of the first three batters he faced reached base, then only two of the final 19 batters he faced reached base, and one of those two baserunners took a cutter to the elbow guard. The switch flipped. The sinker and changeup were down, the cutter was in, and it was Max Fried again.
“I’ll definitely take it,” Fried told Hoch. “It wasn’t the sharpest, but at the end of the day, we won the game. I got deep into the game. You take it and you move on.”
The final line: 6.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K on 86 pitches (video). Pretty good for a guy who said he wasn’t at his sharpest. Aces are the guys who dominate with regularity. They’re also the guys who grind through it and pitch well even when they’re not at their best, and that’s what Fried did on Opening Day. The lack of command has been an issue since his first Grapefruit League outing. I’m not concerned, it’s just something he has to figure out, and he may have figured it out during Wednesday’s game.
(The best part of Fried’s night was his nine-pitch fifth inning with Rob Manfred in the booth. He kept that interview nice and short.)
The first ever (and so far only) ABS challenge
Netflix missing the first ever ABS challenge because of an in-game manager interview no one wants was just perfect (video). It is modern sports broadcasting in a nutshell. You want to watch the game? Well, what if we bombard you with all this other stuff instead? It’s every sport, not just baseball, but baseball is the biggest offender. At least Chisholm’s in-game interview was pretty funny. Most are dull.
Anyway, José Caballero will go into the history books as the first player to use an ABS challenge. He challenged the first pitch of the fourth inning, a Webb sinker up and in, and the strike call stood. Funny enough, the next pitch was much more egregious, but Caballero didn’t challenge that one. I’m guessing using both team challenges on back-to-back pitches would get you a fine in Kangaroo Court.
It didn’t work out, but I thought Caballero’s challenge was a good one. The pitch barely nicked the zone and it’s the difference between a 1-0 count and an 0-1 count to start the inning. Last season the league hit .255/.371/.431 after getting ahead in the count 1-0. It was .217/.263/.344 after falling behind 0-1. You’re already up 5-0 and had a chance to put even more pressure on Webb. I liked the challenge. It didn’t work. It be like that sometimes.
“I wanted to go for it. I thought it was a little higher than what it showed, but at least it was close,” Caballero told Hoch. “… I think it’s gonna be really good. We have a lot of guys that know the zone really well. We’re gonna be aggressive with it and try to get the calls that we want.”
Caballero’s challenge was the only challenge of the game, for either team. I can’t say I expect there to be many games with just one challenge this year. Did it have to do with the score? Were one or both teams saving their challenges for the late-inning high leverage situation that never came? There were plenty of opportunities to challenge. They just never came. Huh.
Judge’s bad night
Judge has an 80.0 K% and you’re telling me I’m supposed to be worried about Spencer Jones? For real though, Judge has been out of sorts since the last few games of the World Baseball Classic. Including USA’s last two WBC games, Judge is 4-for-21 (.190) with 13 strikeouts in his last six games, which span 11 days. Spring Training stats don’t matter, but you can see he’s not himself at the plate.
This looks like every Aaron Judge slump we’ve seen the last 4-5 years. He’s opening too early with his hips and taking hittable fastballs in the zone because he’s sitting on spin (because he sees as much spin as any hitter in the league). Give it two weeks or so and Judge will be in nuclear mode. Right now though, he’s definitely going through it. Taking mistakes and swinging through good pitcher’s pitches.
(Judge had two opportunities to challenge a high strike call, but didn't. Those two pitches were in the first and second innings. Do Judge and/or the Yankees consider that too early to challenge? There was a runner on third with one out for the second pitch, and the challenge would've turned a 1-1 count into a 2-0 count. Seems like a good time to tap your head.)
Miscellany
Ben Rice made several very nice scoops at first base (videos). He had trouble with balls in the dirt last year and worked hard at them in the offseason. Good to see him make a few right on Day 1. I thought we’d see Paul Goldschmidt come in for defense late, but nope. I guess a 7-0 lead is Rice proof … Giancarlo Stanton has been blistering everything since Day 1 of Spring Training. He went 2-for-4 on Opening Day with a 114.4 mph single. Also, weird fact: Stanton has yet to walk in 2026. Zero walks in 29 Grapefruit League plate appearances and none on Opening Day. I’ll take 114.4 mph rockets over walks any day … It was two batters and seven pitches, but Jake Bird looked pretty nasty. Then again, he always looks nasty. It’s just that the results don’t always follow. You can see the vision though. There’s a good pitcher waiting to be unlocked in there … And finally, during a visit to the Netflix booth Barry Bonds told a story about George Steinbrenner offering to make him the highest paid player in 1992, but Bonds walked away after George put a 2pm deadline on it. I’ve heard I don’t know how many different versions of that story over the years. Back in 1992, Jack Curry reported the deadline was two days, not 2pm, and the main sticking point was a sixth year. It's funny that George was suspended at the time, but he was still involved in free agent negotiations even though he wasn't supposed to be, and no one really cared. Bonds went to San Francisco and it turned out okay for the Yankees. They started a dynasty four years later.
(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for if/when it returns.)