This was me pretty much all day Sunday, watching Opening Day baseball games.
Anyways, Opening Day is considered a holiday to many people, including myself. There is always so much hype for the upcoming season and this Sunday’s games did not disappoint.
3 games were played. All with different takeaways.
Obviously the SF Giants game was the game I was most invested in and the one I watched the closest so it will be the game I discuss the most in the post.
Game 1: The Yankees lost 7-3 to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Good News:
- The Yankees lost.
- The Yankees did not win.
- The Rays beat the New York Yankees
Bad News: No bad news here! The Yankees lost!
Game 2: The Cubs lost to Cardinals in a 4-3 walk-off.
Good News:
- It was a thrilling baseball game by the defending World Champions and their
rivals. - Both starting pitchers looked great.
- Cardinals LF Randal Grichuk had 3 RBIs, putting him on pace for nearly 500 RBIs this season. Good luck to him on that. (Future RBI King, Randal Grichuk, above)
Bad News:
- The Cubs didn’t score until the 9th inning, making for a seemingly boring game until the end.
- The Cubs lost the first game of the season. Not good seeing there hasn’t been back to back champs in 15+ years.
Game 3: The Giants lost 6-5 in a walk-off to the Diamondbacks.
Good News:
- Giants Pitcher Madison Bumgarner hit two home runs.
Bad News:
- A pitcher, is the Giants best slugger.
- ANOTHER blown save by the Giants bullpen.
Well it was a day full of ups and down for the San Francisco Giants to say the least.
Inning 1-5:
The game started with 5 perfect innings from the Giants ace, Madison Bumgarner.
No hits, walks or errors were allowed at this point in the game by the Giants and this would have been the very first Opening Day Perfect Game in MLB history and the first No-Hitter on Opening Day in over 70 years.
For the difference between a Perfect Game and a No-Hitter, click here.
In addition to his 5 innings of perfection, he also did this in the top of the 5th inning.
Inning 6:
His perfect game bid was ended in the bottom of the 6th inning by a triple from Diamondback Catcher, Jeff Mathis. The rest of the inning, Bumgarner was roughed up even more and ended up giving up 3 runs.
Inning 7:
With the game now tied 3-3 in the top of the 7th inning, guess was Madison Bumgarner did?
MadBum, as he’s commonly referred to as, is known for his intensity and for regaining his composure quickly. This was just another example of that.
This was also the first time a pitcher has hit two home runs in a game, on Opening Day.
He pitched a dominant 7th inning before he was relieved by Derek Law, with the Giants up 4-3.
Inning 8:
Derek Law quickly let up a run, allowing the game to be tied again.
Law was replaced by rookie Ty Blach, who got the next two outs and was replaced to Hunter Strickland to record the final out of the inning.
Inning 9:
The Giants scored a run in the top of the 9th to regain the lead at 5-4, and Giants fans rejoiced, knowing that it was time for the debut of their new closer, Mark Melancon.
Melancon(below) has been a dominant closer in the league for multiple years, recording almost 
150 saves in that past 4 seasons combined.
He recorded the first two outs of the inning very quickly, but that’s when the Diamondback hitters decided to turn it up.
A double and 3 singles later, the Giants lost in typical fashion. A blown save.
The Giants had an MLB worst, 30 blown saves last season, the most since the Seattle Mariners in 2008 with 31.
The final “Good News” for the Giants is that it can only get better from here.
I’m excited to see what the Giants and the rest of the league has in store for fans the rest of this season!
All statistics and information from http://www.espn.com/mlb/ .
From the Bay to the Universe 
This was a really interesting post, I really enjoyed your use of visual aids with both the pictures, and the gifs from twitter. They not only added a level of humor with the funny ones, but the gifs of from the game also added a level of realism to the events you are talking about. As someone who isn’t a sports fan, I appreciated that a lot. Someone can talk all day long about a great play in football, but I won’t necessarily understand the play and it’s importance until I see it! So the pictures and gifs were a welcome addition! I also really enjoyed how you laid out the games themselves, by laying out the good and the bad portions and implications of them! Overall, I really liked this post and as someone who isn’t a sports fan, I found it to be a very interesting post!
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I’m glad you liked it. It took some investing to figure out how to include those tweets with videos but I am glad I did, because I agree that it adds a certain level of realism. I can describe in great detail how awesome a certain play was or I can share a video of it and provide minimal comments and let the video speak for itself.
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Yet another good post! I loved hearing everyone’s opinions of Sunday’s baseball games on Twitter. It’s interesting to see all of the conflicting opinions between people and love looking at the little arguments. I loved your little good news blurb about the Yankees winning and appreciated all of the photos on your post! I love seeing color on the page, and always get so bored when posts don’t have photos to look at! Your humor is also great and adds a ton to your post. Again, great post. It seems like you really know what you’re talking about. Impressive.
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I totally agree about color on a page. I try to add as much relevant media as I can so that my posts don’t get boring to some people!
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OPENING DAY IS HERE!!! I love this post because this is my favorite time of the year (in case you couldn’t tell). Your set up for this post is really great with the good and bad news section for each of the opening day games. I especially enjoy your good and bad news take on the Yankees vs. Rays game.
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I’ve received many positive(and no negative) comments on my review of the Yankees/Rays game! I’m glad I didn’t piss anybody off!
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This was a cool way of looking at baseball. I personally am a big fan or sports, but aside from being a fan of my home teams, I don’t pay attention to specific players, teams, or records. It is always cool hearing from people who are more interested in that side of sports, and definitely makes me wish I paid closer attention to those specifics. I liked how you looked at all three games and established the positives and negatives!
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Robert,
I loved your humor, I actually laughed out loud to myself reading the start of this post. The gifs and tweets including videos also added a lot of visual perspective. I liked that you covered 3 games briefly and then the Giants in depth versus just covering the Giants. It’s super fun to see the excitement of Opening Day, and like you said it’s basically a holiday for many people!
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I’m wondering did the Yankees win or lose their opening day game against the Tampa Bay Rays?– I couldn’t stop laughing while reading the “Good News” section under that game. Great way to show personality. Also great job breaking down the SF Giants game by highlighting the scoring plays, as well as adding video highlights from a credible sports media like “120 Sports”. BTW even with that opening day lost, I think you guys are going to be just fine, especially if Bumgarner is going to average 2 home runs a game. Great post.
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Rob, this post was great to read and it’s written like of professional sports writers do nowadays (which is a good thing). As you probably know, the Twins have an all-time low interest level (at least since I’ve been alive) so it’s hard to stay interested in baseball for 162 games. Hopefully our 3-0 start isn’t a fluke but there’s a lot of baseball left! I love what you said about Opening Day being a special day for a lot of people, I was actually surprised at how excited I was to watch the Twins play on Monday despite extremely low expectations. Baseball is truly one of those games that you can hate how actual sport is played but it’s almost impossible not to love the tradition and atmosphere of a baseball game.
PS- Congrats for Bumgarner but I had to face him in fantasy baseball that game and I also have Melancon on the squad so here’s to his struggles ending quickly haha
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The Twins are my other favorite team, and even though we are only a week in, they still hold the lead in the AL Central….which is UNREAL! I hope this is a positive year them because it has been a loooong time coming.
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