CC Sabathia’s major league debut got off to a rocky start as Jeff Conine took him deep for three runs in the first, but he allowed just one hit and one walk, striking out three over the next 5 2/3 innings. He would wind up with a no-decision as he left trailing 3-2 despite solo homers by Ellis Burks and Russell Branyan, but Juan Gonzalez’s two-out, two-run single off Willis Roberts in the seventh got him off the hook and gave the Tribe a 4-3 lead that Paul Shuey and Bob Wickman made stand.
Only four of them are, but nine of the eighteen starting position players in this game could be in the Hall of Fame. Pat Rapp and Charlie Nagy had battled 2-2 through five, but the game was decided in the bottom of the sixth. After Harold Baines lined out, Cal Ripken and Will Clark singled and Charles Johnson hit a three-run homer. Apparently Tribe skipper Charlie Manuel thought one of the balls to Johnson had been a strike, as he was tossed during Mike Bordick’s at-bat. He was lucky he didn’t see Bordick’s solo homer which chased Nagy. Cleveland mustered very little against Buddy Groom who recorded a three-inning save.
Pedro Martinez and Charlie Nagy squared off in this one and it was a doozy. Pedro went nine innings, allowing four hits without a walk and fanning twelve, but Brian Giles drove in two runs with a homer in the third and a single in the eighth. Through eight, Nagy scattered eight hits and a walk with eight strikeouts while blanking Boston. In the ninth, Nagy struck out Darren Bragg in between three singles that brought in a run and put runners at first and second for Nomar Gariciaparra. Mike Jackson came in and allowed a single that loaded the bases, bringing on Paul Assenmacher to face Reggie Jefferson. His sac fly to center tied the game, but John Valentin struck out and the game proceeded to the tenth.
Cleveland got Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez singles off Tom Gordon, but the rally ended there. Boston quickly had runners at the corners with singles from Mo Vaughn and Troy O’Leary, Damon Buford was intentionally walked, and Bragg singled to walk it off.
Some oddities in my scoresheet: The tenth was kept on a separate piece of paper in a sprawling fashion that would have been hard to maintain for a marathon game. I noted extra inning substitutions on the main sheet, and had not yet adopted the common sense solution of referring to mid-inning substitutions by referring to the lineup box (as I was already doing for pitchers, e.g. “Gordon 4-10” meaning Gordon entered the game to face the #4 hitter in the tenth inning), so instead I have clumsy notation like “2B 10 Thome” meaning that John Valentin moved to second base for Jim Thome’s tenth inning at-bat.
The Indians got to Chris Carpenter for seven runs in two and a third thanks
to two homers from Matt Williams and one from Sandy Alomar. Solo homers from
Orlando Merced and Ed Sprague off Chad Ogea in the first helped keep
In the seventh, Alex Gonzalez doubled and Otis Nixon singled to knock Ogea out. Alvin Morman got Orlando Merced to fly out, and then Eric Plunk was summoned to face Joe Carter. Carter’s homer cut it to 8-6.
Paul Spoljaric pitched two perfect innings to keep the Blue Jays in it,
while Carlos Delgado led off the eighth with a double off Paul Assenmacher.
It’s cut off from the scan, but Mike Jackson (circled 5) became the next
Cuba had just one hit through five innings, but it was a RBI double that allowed them to stay tied 1-1 with the Netherlands as the teams played in the opening round of the WBC in Taiwan. The Dutch took control of the game in the sixth with a three-spot off three singles and a walk, all coming from current or former big leaguers (Didi Gregorius, Jonathan Schoop, Josh Palacios, Chadwick Tromp). Cuba got a run back in the seventh but saw their last scoring opportunity go up in smoke on terrible baserunning by Luis Robert in the eighth. He was thrown out after getting too far off second considering an advance on a would-be wild pitch (with two outs). Cuba was retired 1-2-3 in the ninth and the Netherlands won 4-2.
Each of Puerto Rico’s middle infielders knocked in three runs on homers (Francisco Lindor on two, Javier Baez one) to power a win over Mexico in the first round of the WBC. Baez’s shot came with two outs in the ninth off Joakim Soria to give Edwin Diaz a much more comfortable margin to work with in the ninth. After Diaz allowed two free passes and got a strikeout, the game ended on a looper back to him on which he was able to double Mexico’s Diaz off second.
The WBC employed a double-elimination format for pool rounds in 2009, which wasn’t a bad idea except that two teams advanced out of each pool, yet the final game was played for seeding purposes (and maybe for the purpose of keeping the winner’s bracket team sharp as well). Additionally, there was no crossing of teams from pools until the final round. Thus in each round, Japan and Korea finished first and second in the pools, then both advanced to the championship meaning that they played five times against each other and only four times against other countries.
This was the first meeting in Pool A, and Japan’s victory ensured their advancement while Korea would have to defeat China in the loser’s bracket final. Japan invoked the mercy rule, powered by homers from Shuichi Murata and Kenji Johjima. Ichiro had three hits and steal, while Daisuke Matsuzaka started and allowed a two-run homer in the first but nothing further.
A two-out, fourth-inning grand slam put Taiwan up 5-0 and a four-run eighth salted away a 12-3 win over their mainland rivals. Hong-Chi Kuo, at this point just coming off his rookie season in the majors, struck out three in the ninth but did allow a run as a double came around on a passed ball and a wild pitch.
This was the (literal) global MLB opener for 2025, played at the Tokyo Dome and featuring two Japanese starters on each side, including the starting pitchers. Shoto Imanaga pitched four no-hit innings for the Cubs, but he walked four with just one strikeout. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was touched up for a run on a two-out Miguel Amaya double in the second, but he walked just one and fanned four over five frames, enough to earn the win as Ben Brown quickly coughed up three runs in his first inning in relief of Imanaga. Seiya Suzuki was 0-4 but Shohei Ohtani was 2-5, so it was a pretty good showing all around for the Japanese players. Matt Shaw made his MLB debut batting seventh for Chicago, going 0-4.
The Buckeyes got off to a great start in the Big Ten Tournament, highlighted by an eight-run fourth and a four-run fifth and winning the game by the run rule after seven. Unfortunately, it would be the last victory for OSU on the season as they would drop their next two games to be eliminated. This brought a surprising end to tenure of coach Bill Mosiello, who resigned to accept his old job as an assistant at TCU after two seasons in Columbus.
Corbin Carroll had a perfect day at the plate with three walks and a double, scoring two and driving in one to help Arizona down Cleveland 6-4 in Goodyear. Madison Bumgarner started for Arizona, allowing two runs in three innings, while Triston McKenzie allowed the same in an inning and two-thirds. Deyvison De Los Santos drew walk as a pinch-hitter for the D-Backs in the seventh; he would be plucked by Cleveland in the subsequent offseason’s Rule 5 draft.
The Guardians fielded a fairly representative lineup in this game, but were using some of the “B” pitchers and it blew up in the ninth, with the Dodgers first ten batters reaching base. The first two Guards pitchers of the inning, Krauth and Alvarez, each failed to record an out but Marman retired all three batters that he faced. Cleveland only managed seven baserunners for the entire contest.
If you follow the progression of my scorekeeping style over time, you will see that my early scoresheets (late ‘90s/early ‘00s) have a lot more notes scrawled on the page then my later efforts. Some of this was due to my notation evolving to allow information to be recorded more effectively (for example, early scoresheets have notes indicating on what pitch events like steals or wild pitches occurred, which I later captured in the scorebox more efficiently), but in general after scoring literally thousands of games there is less that I find so noteworthy that it needs to be specially recorded. Sometimes you can’t help it though, and the Dodgers’ third is a good example. Cody Bellinger hit a fly to the warning track in left that bounced off Raimel Tapia’s glove and over the wall, but Justin Turner who had started from first and rounded second thought Tapia had caught it and ran back towards first, being passed by Bellinger in the process. The notation (Bellinger single to wall in left and out “PR4” – passed runner with putout credited to second base) and) gives some indication, but on an unusual play like this it helps to add the color that the ball bounced out of Tapia’s glove, which I have no code for, or exactly what Turner was doing on the basepaths.
The game saw German Marquez constantly in trouble; he only allowed one run (although it should have at least been two minus the confusion described above), but gave up six hits and six walks stranding two runners in each of his four innings. The Dodgers hade more luck converting baserunners to runs off the Rockies bullpen, getting four runs over five innings while stranding six, but it wasn’t enough. To add insult to injury, the last big LOB inning came in the ninth where they loaded the bases against Daniel Bard with one out (tying runs on base), but Matt Beaty struck out and the game ended on Mookie Betts’ looping liner to second. The only inning the Dodgers did not strand a runner was the sixth and a baserunner was wiped out by a double play in that frame.
Meanwhile, the Rockies put up four two-run innings, the first three spoiling Clayton Kershaw’s afternoon. Chris Owings had a big day for the Rockies, going 3-3 with a triple, walk, two steals, three runs scored, and a RBI.
At 12:43, Jose Urena delivered the first pitch of the MLB season to Ian Happ, and he blasted it to right for a home run. The Cubs added two more runs in the first and another in the second, but the Marlins fought back with one in the first and three in the third. Willson Contreras’ two-out double in the fourth put Chicago ahead, and they would add three runs in the seventh to pull away to an 8-4 win. Cubs relievers allowed just one hit over 5 2/3 shutout innings.
The Rays did all of their Opening Day scoring against Masahiro Tanaka, battering him for seven runs in 2 2/3, while Chris Archer went seven allowing two runs. Note Aaron Judge starting his official rookie season batting eighth in the Yankee lineup.
This was the first MLB game of the season, which means that the first RBI in the majors in 2016 belonged to Francisco Liriano, who would drive in more runs than he allowed this day. Liriano worked six shutout innings, fanning ten and walking five. The Pirates scored three in six innings against Adam Wainwright and each bullpen allowed a single run.
Note that I marked Colton Wong’s popout in the top of the 6th as “IF4” (subscript 9S indicating shallow right field). The IF designation means it was an infield fly, which I only indicate when the catch is not actually completed.
Each team scored their first run of the season in the third inning, then a pair of big innings decided it. San Francisco struck first with Brandon Crawford’s two-out, two-run double capping a four-run fifth. Madison Bumgarner held Arizona down for seven innings, but they jumped on his bullpen, getting three of four runners who faced Javier Lopez and Jean Machi aboard before Chris Owings greeted Sergio Romo with a bases-clearing double. But Romo and Jeremy Affeldt got strikeouts to retire the side and Santiago Casilla had a 1-2-3 ninth for the save.
I got up early to watch this season opener, played in Sydney with first pitch at 5:00 AM Eastern. Scott Van Slyke’s two-run homer in the fifth was all Clayton Kershaw and bullpen would need. Kershaw went 6 2/3, allowing one run on five hits and one walk while fanning seven.
This game ran for 5:14 and sixteen innings on a chilly Opening Day in Cleveland. It started out promisingly for the home team as Jack Hannahan’s three-run homer off Ricky Romero in the second gave the Tribe a 4-1 lead that they carried into the ninth. Justin Masterson was excellent, allowing just two hits (one a homer by Jose Bautista), one walk, and fanning ten. He might have had a shot at a complete game, but in the eighth he made nineteen pitches, including five necessitated after JP Arencibia reached on a strikeout/wild pitch. Chris Perez came on for the ninth and in five batters Toronto had tied it on Edwin Encarnacion’s two-run double.
Both teams’ best extra innings chance came in the twelfth. Toronto loaded the bases with two outs, but Rajai Davis flied out to the warning track in left. Cleveland loaded the bases with one out, but Asdrubal Cabrera grounded the first pitch he saw into a double play. In the sixteenth, Jairo Ascenio was in his third inning of work and walked Brett Lawrie, made a throwing error trying to get the lead runner on Omar Vizquel’s grounder (Vizquel, age 45, was in the game at first base as a utility man), and then was taken deep by Arencibia. It was the first disappointment of what would be a very long season for the Indians.
The Reds got two runs off Shaun Marcum in each of the first and second and used an efficient Travis Wood start (7 IP, 1 R, 4 H, 0 W, 7 K, just 83 pitches) to ease to a 4-2 win.
For this spring training game I used a sheet with diamonds and boxes for balls and strikes. You can discern the pitch sequence as balls are marked with numbers while strikes use symbols to distinguish called (.), foul (-), and swinging (+). Felix Hernandez breezed through 5 shutout innings while Dan Haren gave up homers to Franklin Gutierrez and Ryan Langerhans as Seattle won 4-0.
Solo homers from Raul Ibanez, Ryan Howard, and Chase Utley contributed to the Phillies’ 5-4 lead entering the ninth, but Brad Lidge gave up a leadoff double to Jody Gerut who scored on a pair of groundouts, then issued two out walks to Adrian Gonzalez and Chase Headley. Kevin Kouzmanoff followed with a three run homer and Heath Bell set the Phils down in order for the save.
The Indians got their two runs early as Grady Sizemore homered in his first two at bats. The Tigers tied it with single tallies in the seventh and the eighth and scored two in the tenth to win.
Getting hollow revenge for Game 7 of the previous season’s NLCS, the Mets got two-out, two-run hits from Carlos Delgado in the third and Paul LoDuca in the fourth to stake Tom Glavine to a 5-0 lead. Glavine allowed a run in the sixth and ducked out of a bases loaded jam to close his night.
A number of oddities stand out at the jump for this major league season opener. The defending world champion Red Sox. Randy Johnson pitching for the Yankees. David Wells pitching for the Red Sox. Rueben Sierra batting cleanup for the Yankees.
New York got four runs in 4 2/3 innings off Wells while Johnson started his Yankee career looking like he might still be in Cy Young form, going six innings and allowing one run on five hits, two walks, and six strikeouts. Hideki Matsui was the game’s standout hitter, going 3-5 with a homer and three runs scored and driven in (one of those runs scored coming on a Wells balk in the third).
This is a Grapefruit League Indians/Reds matchup, something much less common than their frequent Cactus League tilts as co-tenants. The Tribe did not take many regulars to Sarasota and were knocked around 10-2, the worst element being an Ernie Young throwing error that turned Wily Mo Pena’s pinch-hit triple into a little league homer.
The Royals got four runs off Jason Davis in the third and another tally in the fourth, which was all they would need. The Indians bullpen (Billy Traber, three innings in his MLB debut and Chad Paranto, two innings) shut out the Royals, whose offense consisted of eight singles and five walks. The Indians were stymied by Chris George for 6 2/3 innings, and didn’t do much against their bullpen either, although Matt Lawton did double for the game’s only extra-base hit.
CC Sabathia took a no-hit bid into the eighth, but Randall Simon lined the first pitch of the inning into center and later scored on an Andre Torres single, Detroit’s only run of the game. They did load the bases with one out in the ninth to bring the tying run to the plate, but Bob Wickman was summoned and got Simon to ground into a double play.
There were four total triples into the spacious Comerica gaps, with the Indians getting them from Matt Lawton, Milton Bradley, and the unlikely Jim Thome.
Bartolo Colon (8 IP, 2 R, 7 H, 3 W, 5 K, 101 pitches) and Pat Hentgen (8 IP, 2 R, 6 H, 0 W, 3 K, 107 pitches) were both in fine early season form, and this game went to extras knotted at two. Both teams had chances in the tenth, as Baltimore loaded the bases with two outs before David Segui hit into a fielder’s choice. Cleveland used two walks and a Jerry Hairston error to load them with one out, but Ellis Burks was gunned out at the plate trying to make Jolbert Cabrera’s fly a game-winning sacrifice. In the tenth, Greg Myers doubled home two with a grounder down the right field line off Steve Reed. Obscure Baltimore reliever Ryan Kohlmeier issued two walks to bring Ellis Burks to the plate as the winning run. Burks to this point was 3-3 with a walk (his two run homer had provided the only Tribe tallies), but he struck out to end it.
But they did score 1,000 runs on the season. Mark Petkovsek was greeted with five straight hits, making it 12-6 and leaving bases loaded, nobody out for Shigetoshi Hasegawa. He induced two quick popouts but Omar Vizquel singled to make it 12-7. Bases still loaded, two outs, closer Troy Percival in. Robbie Alomar singled in two more to make it 12-9 and stole second on the first pitch to Harold Baines, pinch-hitting for pinch-hitter Alex Ramirez. He singled home two. Jim Thome was walked, likely pitched around. Percival got ahead of Richie Sexson 0-2, then threw a wild pitch to put go ahead run in scoring position. Sexson blasted the next pitch over the wall in left. 14-12 Tribe.
Percival drilled David Justice in the ribs on an 0-1 pitch, leading to Justice charging the mound and throwing his helmet at Percival. They were ejected along with Anaheim skipper Terry Collins. In the ninth, the Angels got two singles with two outs to get the tying runs on base, but Paul Shuey induced Todd Greene (pinch-hitting for Trent Durrington, of whom I have no recollection) to bounce into a fielder’s choice at third.
The Angels top three hitters (Darin Erstad, Frank Bolick who I disrespected at the time by misspelling and now by having to look up, and Tim Salmon) combined to go 6-13 with a walk and four homers, but that was essentially all their offense as the other six spots went 2-17 with four walks. The Indians had more balanced contributions up and down their lineup to win 8-5, highlighted by two-run homers from Jim Thome and Brian Giles (the former was announced as a 453 foot shot).
In addition to having to look up Frank Bolick (who appeared in 21 games, with this his only homer of the season and his only other major league action having come in 1993 with Montreal), I don’t remember Phil Nevin as a catcher, but he did start 64 games behind the plate this season and 20 with the Padres in 1999, but just four other times in his twelve year career. Although I suppose this does shed light on why he is now (as I write this in January 2023) the manager of his former team.
Jim Thome’s two-out fourth inning grand slam off Woody Williams was the key blow as the Indians routed the Blue Jays 8-1 north of the border. The Tribe drew seven walks, which helped as the teams were even with nine hits but Toronto’s were scattered. Albie Lopez started for Cleveland and delivered five shutout innings, with Steve Kline soaking up three innings and allowing one run in middle relief (one of those subtle differences in how the game is played that old scoresheets bring to light), and Jose Mesa finished it off.
There wasn’t a lot of offense in this very early spring tilt as Colorado managed just six hits, the biggest being Sean Bouchard’s game-tying homer off Kolby Allard to lead off the sixth. In the eighth, Justin Lawrence struggled with command, walking two and hitting one to open the inning, but he got Petey Halpin to hit a comebacker which turned into a force at the plate and struck out Korey Huff. But Milan Tolentino drilled a single up the middle to plate two and provide the winning runs for Cleveland.
Iowa took advantage of a Buckeye error to plate a run in the first, but it was all Scarlet & Gray from there as they launched four homers, including three in the fifth to roll to an 11-1 walkoff victory. On this Sunday getaway day, a run rule was in place, and so three walks and a double play that couldn’t be turned plated the winning run in the bottom of the eighth as the margin swelled to ten
Relatively chilly temperatures were a recurring theme in the Cactus League in 2023 and it was only 52 degrees when the Giants visited Goodyear to face the Guardians (incidentally, a matchup of the only two teams with “G” nicknames in modern MLB). San Francisco took a 1-0 lead off Cal Quantrill in the first, but Cleveland scored three in the third (capped by Josh Naylor’s two-run double) off Tristan Beck. From there the parade of relievers held each side to just one more run.
