From Bryan Hoch:
The Yankees heard all winter that they were “running it back,” as though that constituted a flaw. They preferred to view it as a strength. After all, this lineup led the Majors in runs scored last year, with real reasons to believe their starting pitching is primed to improve.
Cast in a starring role for Major League Baseball’s streaming opener, the Yankees looked every bit ready for prime time. Their offense came at the Giants in waves, building an early lead that allowed Max Fried to cruise in a 7-0 victory on Opening Night at Oracle Park.
Trent Grisham’s two-run triple highlighted a five-run second inning as the Yankees pounced on right-hander Logan Webb. Ryan McMahon added a two-run single in the frame as the Bombers secured their fifth consecutive Opening Day win.
José Caballero, Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. also drove in runs facing Webb, who surrendered seven runs (six earned) over five innings.
I thought that the hot dog cart bit was silly, but at the same time, we’re hopefully going to be having a whole season of header images of Max Fried having good games, so I figured I might as well mix up the header images by having Fried get a celebratory hot dog.
Anyhow, great win, and that’s WITH Aaron Judge going 0-5 with FOUR strikeouts!
Max Fried looked a bit rusty to start, but then very quickly got into a rhythm. He’s clearly one of those dudes who pitches to the guys in front of him. By which I mean that he pitches certain guys carefully, and then really goes after other dudes, and so once he had a five-run lead, he got SUPER aggressive, and he just dominated from that point forward. Great stuff.
The bullpen were pitching in a 7-0 game, so you can’t take too much from it. Camilo Doval was oddly used in a 7-0 game, but to be fair, with an off day on Thursday, he wouldn’t have pitched for five days by Friday, so I guess it makes some sense.
Anyhow, great way to start the season!
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