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That’s right, folks! To quote the late, great Vin Scully, “It has finally arrived. After all of the arduous days and nights called Spring Training, an endless rehearsal, it’s now time to play for keeps!”
In a move that surely made 100% of baseball fans happy, MLB scheduled just one game on Wednesday night. To make them even happier, they picked the Yankees and Giants to play it! That’s right, an exclusive Opening Day just for the scrappy, underdog, small-market Yankees. Plus, it was on that classic baseball purveyor, Netflix. Wait, what? Yeah, the Netflix that used to send you a DVD in the mail that you would then send back to them a week later. I am, in fact, old.
The telecast was met with a mixed reaction from fans, and it does seem like you need a new account every week to watch your baseball these days. For my part, I did appreciate the absolutely excessive amount of pomp and circumstance Netflix furnished, although the tie-ins and in-line advertising were a bit much. (Their scorebug is also absolutely 20-grade. Just terrible.)
But hey, we got a Logan Webb vs. Max Fried matchup, and surely, that will be a tight pitching duel that hinges on a single play late in the game. Right? Yeah…
Today’s Headlines
Maximum Fried
When the Yankees signed Max Fried last winter, they were looking to add an ace, and they got one, as he pitched 195.1 innings of 2.86 ERA ball, picking up wins in 19 of his 32 starts. Those were career highs in innings pitched, wins, and games started. He’s looking to keep that performance going in 2026, if Wednesday is anything to go by. Fried kicked things off in the first by walking Luis Arraez on four pitches (and they say he’s an empty average hitter!) but settled down pretty quickly, working around a fielder’s choice and single to escape the first unscathed. He only gave up one more hit over the next five-and-a-third innings, issuing just the one free pass to Arraez and striking out four. Sure, that’s not a striking number of punch outs (especially given that Webb nearly doubled the mark), but it was more than enough to get Max his first career Opening Day dub, especially given the Yankees offensive showing (more on that below). He threw seven different pitches last night, and his final line was 6.1 innings pitched, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, and the win. The 162-0 season dream lives again!
Game Belt Secured ✅#RepBX
— New York Yankees (@yankeesbot.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T03:16:24.000Z
Shaking Off The Cobwebbs
Meanwhile, it was a night to forget for the Giants’ ace, as Logan Webb gave up six earned runs over five innings, although he did strike out seven Yankees. To nobody’s surprise, Webb’s night was very sinker-heavy, although his Stuff overall earned him an F on his PLV report card:
Logan Webb (SFG) allowed six earned runs while striking out seven over five innings in the Giants' season opener against the Yankees
— Pitcher List Stats (@pitcherlistplv.pitcherlist.com) 2026-03-26T02:03:34.827Z
Most of the damage happened in the second inning, although only two of the Yankee hits were particularly well-struck balls. It’s Opening Day. Webb’s line is indeed ugly, aside from the Ks, but like Nick said in The Roundup, thems the breaks. I don’t think there’s much to take away from this one.
Five In Two, Two In Five
Like I said, the second inning was really where the Yankee bats did their damage. Ben Rice (the new face of Ben’s Original Rice!) grounded out, but then Giancarlo Stanton flared a single out to right-center followed by Jazz Chisholm Jr. wearing a first pitch that bored in and hit him right in the ribs. José Caballero plated the first run by lacing an RBI liner into left field:
Cabs are here 🚖#RepBX
— New York Yankees (@yankeesbot.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T00:48:57.000Z
(Side note: They set off so many pyrotechnics during the anthem that you’re still seeing the haze hanging in the air here in the second inning.)
Ryan McMahon fell behind 0-2, but then sent a real seeing-eye single back up the middle to drive in two more:
McMahon up the middle to plate 2 👊
— New York Yankees (@yankeesbot.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T00:50:23.000Z
Caballero and McMahon driving in the first Yankee runs, just like we all predicted. Austin Wells singled, and then it was the Big Sleep’s turn to make something happen. Trent Grisham didn’t get fooled by a changeup at the bottom of the zone and absolutely hammered it out into triples alley:
T-rent & the T stands for Triple 🔥
— New York Yankees (@yankeesbot.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T00:52:36.000Z
That would be it for the Yankees, though, as Webb struck out Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to keep things from getting truly out of hand.
No runs scored for either team until the fifth inning, when Bellinger, Rice, and Stanton all hit singles to add another Yankee run on the board. Stanton’s hit in the second was a pedestrian 91.4 mph off the bat. Not this time:
Big G. 114.4 mph. Classic. @Giancarlo818 💪
— New York Yankees (@yankeesbot.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T01:41:35.000Z
Rice would come around to score on a Jazz ground ball that looked like it may have been a very close potential double-play, until Willy Adames spiked the throw to first. Caballero popped out and McMahon struck out to end the inning, though. The second and fifth innings accounted for all of the run-scoring as the Yankees walked away with the win 7-0, out-hitting the Giants 10-3.
By The Numbers
⚾ 19. That’s how many straight seasons the Giants went into Opening Day with a different left fielder…until this year.
Best Moments From Yesterday
Same, Trent. Same.
Fried’s performance was enough to earn him the uh…Netflix MVP nod, which for sure is a real thing we all respect and will hear about and remember forever. The jacket that comes with said award was given to him after the game in one of the more bizarre sequences I’ve seen on a sportscast, featuring hot dog vendor, Jameis Winston (who was all over the broadcast in the strangest QB List crossover I can think of):
this was a mite excessive
I find Trent’s confused and nonplussed attitude to be pretty dead-on for this whole ceremony.
Caballero-for-1
It was Opening Night, and that’s always a good time to get some firsts out of the way. So how about our first ever MLB ABS challenge?! José Caballero challenged a strike call in the fourth inning:
And the call was upheld! The ball barely dotted the corner of the zone, and it turns out in this case that umpires are, in fact, good at their jobs. Surely nobody will take issue with me saying that.
He Wears Many Hats
…but this one he could probably do without. Aaron Judge went hitless last night, going 0-5 with a quartet of strikeouts.
🎇 GOLDEN SOMBREROAaron Judge (NYY) has achieved the season's 1st golden sombrero and his 1st in 2026.
— Sombrero Watch (@sombrero.quest) 2026-03-26T02:00:35.822939+00:00
Not much you can do about being the first if you’re gonna do that on day one, but hopefully it’s not his first of many in 2026.
1 K for 1K
One of those four strikeouts for Judge was a milestone moment, at least.
That right-on-right changeup gives Logan Webb 1,000 for his career!
Smooth Jazz
The Yankees have been a defensively-challenged team overall for a while now, although you wouldn’t know it watching the way Jazz Chisholm Jr. handled this hot shot that came his way in the bottom of the sixth inning:
“Did you see that?!” was my reaction, as well.
Injuries and Other Moves
⚾ Every player you knew who was hurt in Spring Training was officially added to the IL on Wednesday morning. There are four pages worth of transactions; I don’t think many need to be listed here.
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The Case Against FAAB in Fantasy Baseball – Ben Palmer
First- And 99th-Percentile Projections: American League Edition and National League Edition – Davy Andrews, FanGraphs
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