As the Red Sox turn: The Saturday massacre . . .

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Not even revenge for a 10-3 blowout loss in Baltimore Friday night could spare Alex Cora. Not even his mixed-up, muddled-up, twisted Red Sox frying the Orioles alive on Saturday with innings of three, one, and three runs before a ninth inning that could have had them hauled before the Hague could do it.

Cora was taken to the guillotine after that 17-1 Saturday afternoon massacre. So were his five coaches. Before you shake your heads pondering why you should take pity upon six men executed for the Red Sox’s 10-17 start (they beat the Orioles with far fewer human rights violations Sunday, 5-3, for win number 11), you might want to ponder how this mess got built in the first place.

It wasn’t by Cora. It sure wasn’t by Jason Varitek, franchise icon as a catcher when the Red Sox broke the (actual or alleged) Curse in 2004 and followed up anchoring another World Series winner three years later, now “reassigned” from game planning coordinator to another, as-yet-identified role in the organisation.

It sure as hell wasn’t put together by now-beheaded hitting coach Peter Fatse, third base coach Kyle Hudson, bench coach Ramón Vásquez, Fatse’s assistant Dillon Lawson, or major league hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin.

This one’s on chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, who once wrestled his way through a twelve-season career as a middling relief pitcher of occasional flashes and flights. And very few people watching the Red Sox closely think otherwise, no matter how the massacre resonates as par for the baseball course when a team thought to be a division or league power isn’t exactly behaving that way on the field.

Maybe nobody put it with quite the nail-driving force of Athletic writer Steve Buckley. “For anyone choosing to cite this as just the latest example of a dead-ass ballclub whose manager is unable to inspire his players to keep performing at a high level regardless of the circumstances, you have just cause to do so,” he began Sunday.

Or you can look at the misshapen roster and the lack of clubhouse leadership and ask who put this mess together.

That would be Craig Breslow, who, believe it or not, once lived in big-league clubhouses. Lots of them. He soldiered on, year after year, with organization after organization. He was released five times. In 2018, at age 37, he pitched at three levels of the Toronto Blue Jays’ farm system as part of one last effort to get back to the big leagues.

How strange that a guy who’s been in so many clubhouses doesn’t seem to know how they work. How strange that a guy who has been on so many rosters hasn’t figured out how to build one.

Alex Cora

Alex Cora signing a baseball in the clubhouse. His execution papers were signed Saturday despite the Red Sox nuking the Orioles that day, proving who gets to take the fall for a hot mess starting 10-17.

Remember Alex Bregman? Brought aboard to play third base last year while easing incumbent Rafael Devers into designated hitting and first base. Except that Devers wouldn’t buy in, before he would, before he wouldn’t (easy to get the sequence confused, no?), before he was shipped to the Giants in a “trade” that made the word a euphemism for the Red Sox ridding themselves of the $250+ million left on Devers’s deal.

Fighting injuries, Bregman still endeared himself to the Red Sox clubhouse with leadership and agreeability in hand with accountability. Then he hit free agency. Then Breslow convinced one and all upstairs that, no, of course not, the Cubs weren’t really being serious about offering Bregman a big chunk of the vault, a no-trade clause, and the Van Allen Belt. (That last is a joke, son.)

Except the Cubs were deadly serious. And, oh, by the way: while the Red Sox sputtered, spun, and plunged into the morass that culminated in the Friday night flogging they suffered, the Cubs won ten straight and eleven of thirteen to claim second place in the National League Central.

“I mean obviously, it’s kind of up in the air what the true direction of the franchise is,” said Trevor Story, Red Sox shortstop. “Some of the best coaches in the world didn’t get a fair shot.” The dear boy. Somebody forgot to brief him about Red Sox life under John Henry’s hammer. As another Athletic writer, Ken Rosenthal, wants to remind us, these Red Sox “could win the World Series—unlikely as that might be with the roster Breslow constructed as chief baseball officer—and it would only spare him for so long.”

Ask Dave Dombrowski. Ask Ben Cherington. Ask Theo Epstein, who once escaped the Henry regime in a gorilla suit, only to return, win a second Series and then bolt for the Chicago Cubs. Oh, to hear the honest thoughts of Epstein, back with the Fenway Sports Group as a part-owner and senior adviser, on the latest installment of As The Red Sox Turn.

It’s an endless game of survivor at Fenway Park, only no one ever survives. Not top executives. Not superstars like Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Alex Bregman. Not managers like Terry Francona, John Farrell and now Alex Cora . . .

Was Cora perfect? (Pause to stop laughing.) Remember, he had to take time off (ho ho ho) over his role in the Astros’s illegal, off-field-based, electronic sign-stealing operation of 2017-18 that was exposed over a year after he led his Red Sox to a World Series ring in his first year on the bridge. He also couldn’t sell Devers on the DH/1B transition the Giants proved to have little trouble selling, after all.

He wasn’t perfect. But neither were he or his staff going to get too much out of this assemblage, no matter how they looked on Saturday. “At the end of the day, when we take the field, it’s on us,” said outfielder Roman Anthony, currently struggling with back trouble. “It’s not AC’s job to go out there and do the things that we’re expecting to do as players. So, I mean, it’s nobody’s fault but ours.”

Eyes will be upon interim manager Chad Tracy as he tries to find the right pieces from among those bequeathed him. The pieces were random and testy enough that Cora found himself having to play mad scientist searching for the best formulae.

Forget whether Albert Einstein could square this roster’s mass into energy instead of this mess. Meaning Breslow himself could be the next execution. As the Red Sox Turn . . .

Garret Anderson, RIP: The quiet, infectious Angel

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Garret Anderson

All business in the batter’s box or left field, Garret Anderson was liable to break into an infectious smile and good baseball and life talk with teammates otherwise.

“Maintaining an even strain” was a way of life for legendary military test pilots and often a way of anguish for their wives. It’s also a way of life for enough baseball players, and often a source of anguish for enough of their fans. Show me the player who maintains an even strain, and I’ll show you the fans who mistake it for indifference.

Garret Anderson, whose death of a heart attack at 53 Thursday shocked his sport, was such a player. At least, until his Angels shocked his and their sport and won the 2002 World Series in seven rather thrilling games.

“I used to be called lazy,” he told one reporter, after his three-run double in the fifth inning of Game Seven put the Angels ahead to stay. “Now that we win a World Series, I’m called graceful.”

Anderson at the plate was a sight more likely to inspire engineers than artists. He didn’t look at pitchers as though he wanted to carve his initials into their foreheads. He didn’t look or act like an ogre measuring up his next meal or a junkyard dog finding intruders under every wreck. He swung methodically but attentively, line drives a specialty, even if he did win the 2003 Home Run Derby.

“So stoic was Anderson in the box,” wrote Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci in tribute, “that he came to the plate 9,177 times and saw 30,503 pitches and was hit by only eight of those pitches, the fewest ever by anyone who came to the plate 9,000 times. There was no filigree to Anderson. No self-promotion. Nothing extraneous. How he played happened to be exactly how he lived his life.”

“That swing that I was using tonight is not a swing that I try to use during the season,” he said after he won that Derby. “It was just strictly for trying to hit balls over the fence. During the season, mentally and physically, I don’t do that. I look for mistakes and try to hit them hard.”

Pitchers, other opponents, and even teammates understimated or dismissed Anderson at their own peril. In a seventeen-year career, all but two seasons of which were with the Angels, Anderson was as reliable as the day or night was long. He led the American League back-to-back in doubles; he averaged 21 home runs per 162 games; he didn’t walk much but only ever struck out 100 times once; he finished with his play in left field worth 95 total zone runs above his league average, fourth on the all-time list.

Still, there were those who assumed Anderson too benign to make the Big Plays. They assumed incorrectly.  “He doesn’t dive for balls because he gets there quicker than most guys,” said Darin Erstad, Anderson’s longtime Angels outfield partner, and a classic junkyard dog type of player. If that type holds Anderson in high esteem, best listen.

Not that Anderson was allergic to diving or lunging. He simply thought it meant he’d been caught unawares for a very rare moment. “I never should have had to dive for that ball,” Anderson once said after making a diving catch against the Twins. “I got a bad jump. I study hitters. I have an idea of where the ball is going. I don’t dive because I don’t have to.”

Somewhere in the Elysian Fields, Joe DiMaggio must be grinning, if not ready to mix Anderson a tall, cold one.

So the 2003 All-Star Game MVP didn’t resemble the offspring of a secret in vitro union between Rickey Henderson and Robin Williams. The laugh tillers still need the straight men.

“His passion to play this game was very real, and although maybe it didn’t manifest itself the way it did with some other players, Garret played hard, he wanted to win,” said his longtime Angels manager Mike Scioscia, when Anderson was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame. “He’s got that internal competitive nature that every great player has to have, and he was really the foundation of our championship run back in 2002 and for many other years. He just was a terrific talent and a terrific person.”

Teammates were also among the first to get tastes of Anderson’s dry, disarming wit. Midwest-born former first baseman Scott Spiezio learned the hard way when his fashion sense, or lack thereoff, came into Anderson’s sights. “I’d get on the [team] plane, he’d be like, ‘Spiez, you got on a horse blanket? You’re giving me allergies’,” Spiezio said. “Before you know it, I’m buying Canali, Hugo Boss and Armani.”

Like George Harrison’s reputation as the “Quiet Beatle,” Anderson’s reputation as the Quiet Angel was often deceptive. And, like Harrison, in a good way.

Win or lose, by blowout or by single run, Anderson prided himself and his best teammates on consistency, whether fellow stoics or class clowns alike. “You can’t get wrapped up in one game,” he said in April 2002, after the Angels blew Cleveland out 21-2 one fine day.

Guys’ personalities on this team are the same day-to-day. Guys are walking around the clubhouse the same way they were last week when we were getting our butts kicked. That’s good to see. We have a lot of games to play.

“Yes, he was quiet, but let me tell you that if you entered his inner circle, he was deeply, deeply engaging, even loquacious,” said Joe Maddon, eventually a World Series-winning manager himself but then the Angels’s bench coach. “I so enjoyed our conversations. He was just a sweetheart of a guy. All of us who knew him are just broken up about [his death]. We all loved him. This is really, really hard.”

Maybe the hardest hit might have been Tim Salmon, drafted by the Angels a year before Anderson. A pair of southern California guys, one from Los Angeles (Anderson) and one from Long Beach (Salmon), who forged a deep brotherhood out of opposites, but also out of a few common threads (each married their high school sweethearts, for one), Anderson’s even strain somehow finding its neatest complement in the far more outgoing Kingfish.

“I mean, it’s devastating. As devastating as anything can be in your life,” Salmon began when reached by a reporter.

We’ve pretty much been in this game together at the same time the whole time. I just remember seeing this kid driving this really nice Mustang [in their instructional league days]. He must’ve spent his entire signing bonus on it. Here comes this tall, lanky kid. I was like, ‘Oh, what kind of attitude we’re gonna have here?’ And it was the complete opposite. He was just so mild-mannered and quiet, and you had to draw it out. But he was infectious. He became a favorite of his teammates from the beginning.

“When I first got drafted,” said Angels outfielder/DH Mike Trout, long enough The Man in Anaheim before the injury bug rudely interrupted him, and the only Angel to score more runs lifetime than Anderson, “[Anderson] was the guy. He meant a lot to this organization . . . I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything bad said about him. It’s just a tough, tough loss.”

Anderson’s impact wasn’t just on his own team. He made a big impression on another southern California kid who grew up making Anderson—who was also respected for signing autographs for kids for long periods daily while he played—his baseball hero.

“You always hear, ‘Don’t meet your heroes’,” said Freddie Freeman, the Dodgers’s Hall of Fame-bound first baseman. “But then I got to meet him, and I was like, ‘I’m glad I did.’ Because he was a beautiful man. And I wish he was still here. He meant a lot to so many people … I’m at a loss for words really.”

The only people to whom he could mean more were his wife, Teresa; their daughters, Brianne and Bailey; and, their son, Garret (Trey) Anderson III. As great as baseball’s grief is, theirs is greater. Lord watch over them as You welcomed him home, a little bit early, but no less safe and sound.

Phil Garner, RIP: Two sides of scrap iron

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Phil Garner

Phil Garner debates with umpire Larry Young in 2006. He didn’t always act like his Scrap Iron nickname.

Phil Garner was nicknamed Scrap Iron for his feisty side but had a side gentle enough that he once promised his wife to hit a grand slam for her when she missed the first one he hit as a major leaguer. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Unless you can. And he did.

Garner was a rough-and-ready second baseman whose fortés did not include power hitting. (He averaged nine homers a year lifetime.) So, after Mrs. Garner missed him taking Cardinals pitcher Bob Forsch in the bottom of the sixth on 14 September 1978, the loving husband promised her another salami slice ASAP.

Naturally, it came the next day, against the Montreal Expos. And neither Garner had to wait beyond the bottom of the first, when hubby squared off against Woodie Fryman with the pads padded and hit one over the left field fence. It was the first time a National League player sliced salami in back-to-back games in 77 years.

That was the guy who’d grow up to manage the Astros to their first pennant in 2005, when they were still a National League club. The bad news was the Astros grappling their way to it through the Cardinals only to get swept by the White Sox.

And, the who’d go from there to the Athletics’ front office as an advisor, to the team who once traded him after the guy they traded to manage the Pirates, Chuck Tanner, told his new team to trade for the second base slasher. In that advisory role, Garner proved invaluable to an old teammate named Bob Melvin, when both were Giants and Garner was near the end of the line.

Maybe that was also because, when managing the Brewers and the Tigers once upon a time, Garner made Melvin his bench coach at both stops, and Melvin appreciated Garner talking to him in terms of actualities and not what-ifs.

“When he would talk to me,” said Melvin to The Athletic‘s Tyler Kepner about Garner, who died of pancreatic cancer Saturday night, “he would always say, ‘When you manage …’ Not one time did he ever say, ‘If you manage …’ And it just resonated with me that he had that much confidence in me. Obviously, I did end up managing, and a lot of my philosophies and a lot of my values in baseball come from him. There’s no more impactful guy in my career than Phil Garner.”

Garner did that in a lot of places. When he became a Pirate, he engaged in some good-natured jousting with Hall of Famer Dave Parker, who’d first been astonished that his team sent six players to Oakland in the swap that made Garner a Pirate in the first place.

Parker zinged him, Garner zinged back, and the new guy’s “initiation was complete,” as Parker remembered in his memoir, Cobra, “and I had a new sparring partner.” He also had an almost immediate appreciation for Garner one spring training afternoon after Garner’s arrival.

“In the twilight,” the Cobra wrote, “ol’ Scrap Iron was still out there, hours later, taking extra fielding practice at third base. As pissed as I was about the trade, I knew it was the smart move and we got ourselves a winning player.” A guy to win a World Series with, as they did with the Fam-I-Lee Pirates of 1979.

And, a guy who knew how to help bring a roster together, as the team’s relief ace Kent Tekulve told Kepner. “Our team was known to be, oh, a little rowdy, a little cocky, and nobody was safe in the clubhouse,” Tekluve began.

It didn’t matter where you stood in the pecking order, everybody was fair game, and a lot of that was Gar. It was hilarious every day when we’d come in. Whichever one got there first—Parker or Gar—you were waiting for the second one, because it was going to start. You’ve got this 6-foot, 5-inch, huge Black guy and this 5-foot, 9-inch little redneck, and they’d just start in on each other, and that spread. Everybody’s involved now.

And he knew what was going on. I mean, Phil was a smart guy. He knew if he got on Parker, then everybody else would get on him, too. And Parker liked that, because that gave him a reason to prove you wrong.

That’s the man whom Tigers pitcher C.J. Nitkowski once ripped publicly after “a frustrating game,” as Kepner phrased it. Garner bawled him out for it in a clubhouse meeting the next day . . . but accepted the pitcher’s apology privately. Garner even tried to acquire Nitkowski when managing the Astros later on.

“It really spoke to me and made me reflect on how I want to handle myself,” said Nitkowski, who went from the mound to the broadcast booth in due course. “He showed what professionalism looks like, and what forgiveness looks like.”

Another of his pitchers, Steve Sparks, remembered a tough loss that stirred Garner to “shredding us in the locker room” and turning the postgame food spread into a miniature landfill. If Garner couldn’t cool himself off, his lady could—and did.

“At the end of [the tirade],” Sparks remembered, “his wife Carol has a Harley-Davidson wheeled into the clubhouse for his birthday—and right away he turns into Jerry Seinfeld in the ‘schmoopie’ episode, from one character to another in the blink of an eye. He was so relatable. He knew how to laugh at himself.”

Hopefully some of that laughter will come through the tears when they lay the body to rest and wish the man a safe journey home to the Lord. Where Dave Parker’s just liable to be waiting for him with a cold beer in hand and a mouthful of wisecracks with which to serve it.

First published by Sports-Central.

Three swipes, you’re out

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Jo Adell

Jo Adell (7) holds the ball in his glove aloft after his third Saturday night home run theft proved the most spectaculer of the three.

Let’s assume there were cynics in Angel Stadium Saturday. Let’s assume at least a few of them said, “I’d like to see him do that again,” when Jo Adell took a flying leap and robbed Mariners star catcher Cal Raleigh of a home run. Those cynics and Raleigh hadn’t seen anything yet.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guy rob two homers in one game, much less three,” said Raleigh after the game. “Baseball can amaze you night in and night out. You can see something you’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Did the Big Dumper say three?

He did.

And he wasn’t just whistling tea kettle, either.

Raleigh was only the second batter of the game. It took until the eighth inning for Adell to get another crack at grand theft homer, when Josh Naylor lofted a long fly to just about the same right center field real estate over which Raleigh tried to fly. Once again, Adell took a flying leap. Once again, he snatched the fly before it could hit the high wall above the yellow line that determines whether a drive might be a homer or not when hitting the wall.

Adell had one more piece of business to tend an inning later. This time, J.P. Crawford thought for dead last certain that his long fly toward the seats behind the lower right field corner wall would make it into those seats for the run that eluded the Mariners all game long to that point.

Not quite.

Adell ran toward that wall, leaped with his back to the fans in that section, extended his glove hand, and speared the ball, snapping his glove around a split half-second before he fell all the way behind the wall . . . before springing up none the worse for wear and with the ball still secured.

Only two players stole four home runs at all all last season, Jacob Young of the Nationals and Fernando Tatis, Jr. of the Padres. Adell stole three of them in one night’s work.

For an outfielder who’d always had the tools but not always the results, you could only imagine what was or wasn’t shooting into and back out of his head after the Angels banked the 1-0 win. (The lone run? Zach Neto taking Emerson Hancock’s fourth service of the game over the left center field fence in the first.)

“Defense was something that I struggled with,” Adell told reporters postgame. “Just finding ways to improve and get better and find a way to learn. At the end of the day, defense is one of those things where it’s just about trying to get the job done.”

Sounds very much like a man who took some wise counsel on more than one occasion from former Angel and longtime former Twins center field star Torii Hunter. But what did Hunter think? “It’s amazing, man,” said the man who’s mentored Adell during spring trainings. “That’s probably the greatest defensive game I’ve ever seen.”

“Front row seat to the Jo Show,” Xtweeted Mike Trout, whose healthy resurgent season took a rude but hopefully very short disruption Sunday afternoon, incurring a contusion when hit by a pitch late in the Angels’s 8-7 win.

“You just get there, and it’s just decision-making,” said Adell of his backward leap and fall while robbing Crawford. “Just got there, and was able to fall over and end up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who, but it was a softer landing than I thought it would be. It’s kind of crazy.”

“Kind of crazy” might be a kind way to phrase it. He may have been lucky the landing was far more shallow than the one Tampa Bay’s Manuel Margot had catching one in a flying leap over a right-side wall with a deeper landing in Game Two of the 2020 American League Championship Series. But then Margot was lucky to come up with his skeleton intact.

The Mariners proved to be good sports about it all. On their clubhouse bulletin board, someone inscribed the Sunday game plan: “Don’t hit the ball to Joseph Adell.” They only hit three in Adell’s direction Sunday—once for a double, once a home run, and once an RBI single.

The home run, from second baseman Cole Young in the top of the fifth, flew high enough over the right field fence in front of a ballpark maintenance alley that Adell couldn’t have even thought of stealing it, even by catapult. Even the best of thieves need time off for good behaviour.

So this was Opening Weekend . . .

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The Las Vegas Aviators celebrate an Opening Night 12-1 blowout laid upon the Salt Lake Bees . . . (Photograph by your correspondent.)

Opening Weekend. The most certain sign that we’ve survived winter.

Netflix Loss Dept.—The Yankees and the Giants started it last Wednesday night. The game happened to air on Netflix. The game turned out to be secondary to practically everything, but especially a pre-game show that seemed mostly to be about the rest of Netflix’s broadcast/streaming schedule and offerings.

But there was a game. And the Yankees shut the Giants out 7-0 to open despite Aaron Judge striking out four times for the first time on any Opening Day in his career. It only began with the Yankees slapping Logan Webb silly for five in the second.

Double Zero Dept.—That Opening Night shutout was just the beginning. Cam Schlittler followed Max Fried’s splendid work with some splendor of his own: a 70-pitch limit not stopping him from striking eight out in five and a third innings, en route the Yankees’s franchise-first back-to-back season-opening shutouts.

Judge Not Dept.—Judge shook off those Opening Night strikeouts with a pair of home runs over the rest of the set, in which the Yankee shutout streak was broken by their winning 3-1 Saturday.

Trout Time Dept.—Mike Trout spent Opening Weekend uninjured . . . and doing Mike Trout stuff: he led the weekend in plate appearances and walks (six, all unintentional) while bopping two home runs and scoring four runs as his Angels went 2-1 against the Astros to open.

Piracy Dept.—Opening Day:  Paul Skenes opened his Cy Young Award defense Thursday by getting destroyed for five Opening Day runs and having to leave the game in the bottom of the first in Citi Field. He had help, alas: a pair of Oneil Cruz outfield miscues left room for Mets infielder Brett Baty’s three-run triple into right.

The Mets won that one, 11-7, then took the second game in extras, 4-2, thanks to Luis Robert, Jr.’s three-run homer in the bottom of the eleventh. The Pirates up and won the third of the set Sunday, this time in ten, when the Mets allowed a pair of RBI singles in the top of the frame but couldn’t get more than one back in the bottom—Juan Soto’s RBI double turned into an out when Francisco Lindor was thrown out at the plate, and that was all the Mets could summon.

But starting 2-1 in the tough NL East isn’t exactly starting from weakness.

Saturday Fright Live Dept.—C.B. Bucknor is somewhat notorious for, shall we say, fluctuating accuracy rates, but Saturday the veteran ump found himself called out seriously by the new automated ball-strike system: Working behind the plate for the Red Sox against the Reds, Bucknor had eight pitch calls challenged and six overturned.

“The Red Sox blew all their ABS challenges early against the always horrible CB Bucknor,” posted veteran sports observer Bill Simmons, “and now he’s running amok like Jason Voorhees. I like ABS it’s a brand-new way to get aggravated during a baseball game.”

Referencing Alex Cora, Red Sox manager, hustling out to protect his batter Trevor Story on  a check swing call (Story asked Bucknor to get help from first base; Bucknor kinda sorta declined) and getting himself tossed for his trouble. All that because the Red Sox spent all their challenges early and often.

The Reds eventually won, 6-5, in eleven innings. Which seemed forgotten, almost, amidst the controversy whipped up by the Bucknor overthrows.

Friday Night Frights and Lights Dept.—The Las Vegas Aviators opened their Pacific Coast League championship defense rather emphatically on their Opening Night: they destroyed the Salt Lake Bees, 12-1, the big drop a seven-run fourth in which Colby Thomas hammered a three-run homer high over the center field fence.

Then followed a season-opening fireworks show, the first of six such Friday shows scheduled for the year. A splendid time was had by the sellout crowd, which including your correspondent and his son, who attended his first game at Las Vegas Ballpark since moving to Las Vegas over two years ago.

The Aviators went from there to sweep the Bees over the weekend. Already they look like potential repeat champions.

The Parent Trap Dept.—Oft-beleaguered Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm destroyed Rangers pitcher Nathan Eovaldi in the bottom of the fifth last Thursday at Citizens Bank, sending a 2-0 service for a three-run homer helping the Phillies to a 5-0 shutout.

The day before he made Eovaldi a personal piñata, Bohm revealed he’s suing his parents for a figure described only as “millions,” accusing them of turning “a sizeable amount” of his money to themselves for their own use.

It may yet prove tough for Bohm to play ball with that to bother him. The Phillies went from their Opening Day triumph to a setback or two, losing the next two to the Rangers, 5-4 (in ten innings) and 8-3.

Bobbleheads Up Dept.—In the middle of the Dodgers’ season-opening sweep of the Diamondbacks, catcher Will Smith:

* Had his bobblehead night.

* Had his wife and two little daughters heave the ceremonial first pitch to him to start that night.

* Hit what proved the game-winning home run on that night.

As Jayson Stark would say, because . . . baseball!

Three-Bomb Blues Dept.—Two rookies bombed their ways into the record books: Munetaka (White Sox) and Chase DeLauter (Guardians) spent Opening Weekend each hitting three home runs in their first three ever major league games.

They join Trevor Story and Kyle Lewis as the only other rookies to deliver that kind of three-peat to open their major league careers.

Interesting observations in Rob Shandler’s 2026 Baseball Forecaster:

“If he can hit an MLB fastball and keep his strikeouts within reason, his ceiling might be a poor man’s Kyle Schwarber. Let’s just hope his floor isn’t a rich man’s Daniel Vogelbach.”—On Murakami.

“[C]ontinues to be injury prone and hasn’t reached 250 plate appearances in any of the last three seasons . . . With an elite knowledge of the strike zone and big power and hit tools, he is a good bet to succeed.”—On DeLauter.

And to think, the season has a mere 159 games to go!