And just like that....the Yankees hit a new annoying franchise record and the sky is officially falling. It is now six years in a row we start the season 0-1. It sucks. It's definitely not the way you want to start a season but baseball is a marathon and not a sprint. There's not a whole lot you can "learn" in game one of a 162 game season unless you are one of the big media outlets and then you know everything.
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| (April 1, 2017 - Source: Brian Blanco/Getty Images North America) |
Okay, so after finishing with the best record in Spring Training we forgot to carry that momentum into the regular season.
Masahiro Tanaka really sucked yesterday. File it under epic failure if you want but the sky is not falling yet. This is a youth movement that just got its first taste of the big league stage and some media outlets like
THIS one, have already questioned if we all should've "bought into" the idea or not.
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| April 1, 2017 - Source: Brian Blanco/Getty Images North America |
Tanaka was far from an ace. He threw 67 pitches to get eight outs in only 2.2 innings. The two home runs, seven runs on eight hits was bad. The seven earned runs are a career high and the 2.2 innings are the second fewest of his career and ugly. It's not the first time Tanaka had a bad Opening Day start, but 2015 against the Blue Jays has not been forgotten and despite the bad start he still won 12 games that season. So if we are lucky enough to say this is the worst start of the season then it is good to get it out of the way early I guess.
Regroup and go back out there and attack 5 days later!
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| Photo: Getty Images |
Pitching wasn't the only problem. It may be anew lineup with young faces but the Yankees still had the same challenges with hitting and driving in runs. The young trio of
Greg Bird,
Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez went a combined 1-for-13 overall with 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position. The lone hit in that sample was Judge's double off of
Chris Archer in the second inning. The kids weren't the only ones getting attention, the media had to point out that as bad as Alex Rodriguez was last season that new DH
Matt Holliday was also 0-4 on the day.
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| Photo: Getty Images |
The offense was bad, Chris Archer was in control and silenced our bats and Tanaka just stunk but the one "wow" moment stood out to give some optimism on the day. In the first inning
Gary Sanchez hit a come-backer that went right back to Archer that MLB's Statcast tracked at
115.7 mph! He is seeing the ball well and hitting it hard. There is always a silver lining, even after a bad game.
So yeah, the Opening Day game sucked. The best news is that todaythe Yankees get an off day
(weird since the usual inclement weather concerns don't apply here with a domed stadium but whatever) AND there are still 161 games left to play! No team has gone 162-0 before and spring showed us just how young and exciting our team is. It was just a bad day against a good pitcher.
The sky is not falling....and BASEBALL IS BACK! Keep calm and enjoy the ride.
--Jeana Bellezza
BYB Managing Editor
Follow me on Twitter: @NYPrincessJ
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