What An Opening Act

- Brennan Weiss

The predictions are over and now it’s time for the players and their respective teams to ‘walk the walk’, and back up what everyone has been talking about since last October. The NL East, one of the more interesting divisions in baseball this year, surpassed any Opening Day expectations with some outstanding and surprising performances. 

     A combined 36 runs were scored amongst all five of the NL East teams, along with 5 homeruns, (one of which was a grand slam by Placido Polanco, the new Phillie) and outstanding performances by the hyped up Roy Halladay and the quiet, but reassuring Johan Santana of the Mets.

     There were a multitude of phenomenal plays all around the major leagues today, which helped make this one of the more memorable Opening Day’s in years. The best hitter in baseball proved he is no other as he accumulated two homers off Aaron Harang and Mike Lincoln in an 11-6 victory over the soon-to-decline Cincinnati Reds. On top of that, Jason Heyward, who doesn’t need an introduction, homered in his first major league career at-bat. But, on top of all of these fascinating feats was the remarkable play, which you will see on MLB Network’s AL Plays of the Year this upcoming winter, by White Sox ace Mark Buehrle. I will go into no more detail, for I don’t want to give any of it away if you haven’t seen it thus far. (Just go onto mlb.com and in the slideshow, you can find the video of the play.)  

     Yes, I know, it is just Opening Day. It is just one game out of the 162-game season. But, there is something different about Opening Day. There is something special about saying goodbye to the winter, and giving the spring a warm welcome with the start of a new season. There is something special about watching your hometown team, no matter how good or bad their previous year was, start off on a clean slate. There is something special about knowing that on Opening Day, every team is 0-0, and despite all of Sports Illustrated’s wacky predictions, and the media’s offseason talk, anything can happen.

Good luck to the rest of the days this week, trying to beat out today’s incredible, opening act. 

Opening Day Scores

Phillies defeat Nationals: 11-1

Braves defeat Cubs: 16-5

Mets defeat Marlins: 7-1

- Brennan Weiss