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Alas, OPENING DAY. I freaking love baseball and love the Yankees man. From a young age this was one of my favorite days. The offseason and spring training is behind us, and I am now excited for the season. Here is latest entry of "The Bronx Tales" and it's time to #ChaseFor28
Pre Game
How to kill the morale for the season
Judge did not get an extension by Opening Day
Cashman has a bullshit press conference to say "we tried"
He then releases the numbers to try to say Judge is greedy
This is heading in the wrong direction. He is about to have a monster f-u MVP season and then they won't pay him at the end of the year. They also have to go to arbitration in July, which just makes matters worse.
I think the contract was fair, to be honest, but again, Judge knows his worth. He should've been signed and locked up already, and he should have been given the C on his God Damn chest. I was infuriated by the Yankees front office, but I am not surprised. We have watched other teams recently let their face of their franchises leave. Mookie Betts, Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, all said "I'll go chase the bag".
I wasn't going to let this ruin my day though, I was ready for Opening Day.
Opening Day
The Masters quad-box on one screen and the YES Network pregame on the other, I was about to have myself a Friday afternoon. My bets were locked in and ready to win some bread.
Yankees ML
Yankees/Red Sox Over 8
Giancarlo to hit a homerun
The pre game ceremony was awesome as always, I was HYPED for Yankees to return. That turned to frustration in about 7 minutes. Right off the bat, I had flash backs from the Wild Card Game. Gerrit Cole did NOT have it in the first innings
Four straight balls to Kike
A monster homerun by Devers
Xander pops one off the right field wall
RBI double for JD Martinez
Like what the fuck man. There goes the CY Young. I am being dramatic but still, like this is NOT how you start off the season. He closed out the inning fine, but I wanted to just shut the game off after that.
It was already time for an afternoon beer...
Bottom of the first came up, again morale was low, but the beer helped. Donaldson was a quick out, Judge had a bloop single, then Anthony Rizzo.... BOMBED THAT BABY INTO THE SHORT PORCH. GET THE BALL TO THE ITALIANS!!
Cole got back in a groove. With the short spring training, I understand why he got pulled in the 5th, he threw 68 pitches so it's fine to start off slow. However I would have loved to see him strike out the side to close it out, but c'est la vie, it's a long season.
The defense might be my favorite part of this team right now. Turning double plays at ease, the outfield all has cannons, and Higgy's frame jobs are phenomenal. Donaldson and Rizzo might be the best 3B/1B defensive combo in the league.
Stanton showed he hasn't lost any strides with his bullet to the short porch. I really do feel he's going to have a helluva season, and I think he feels comfortable as a Yank. All he needs to do is stay healthy, play a little outfield, and smash the ball. Simple formula.
Chad Green had a nice little inning. As did Castro, Loaisiga, and Peralta. The bullpen is going to be the saving grace this year. An absolute arm barn of wagons.
The weirdest thing of the day was seeing Torres on the bench. It doesn't mean anything because guys are going to be shuffled around the entire year, but I think Boone made the right call. DJ is an MVP type guy, especially the past three seasons. He called game and tied it up with another Bronx Bomber homer.
All tied up, Chapman was looking like midseason form, throwing absolute gas. Unfortunately the Yankees couldn't close it out in the 9th, so Free Baseball...
I had to drive my girlfriend to the airport, so the rest of the game was good old fashion play by play on the radio. Xander decided to have himself a day, three hits and an RBI single in the 10th. Then comes Gleyber Torres, who made his impact off the bench, pinch hitting for a sac-fly tie. Bottom of the 11th and who else but Josh Donaldson
In his Yankees debut, a nice little RBI single to lift the Yanks 6-5. LFG!! First walk-off win on opening day since Yogi Berra scored in 1957, you love to see it. A pinstripe moment?? It'll definitely be on the DVD.
6 runs, 9 hits, no errors. A good clean baseball game.
You can never brush off the Red Sox, but I really don't think they are that amazing. Like Xander, Devers, and Story are all going to rake, but their pitching is not impressive, and they love committing errors on defense. They will still be a problem, but not our biggest problem.
All-in-all, it was a fine game to kick things off. Start spreading the news, LET'S GO YANKEES!