The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 4-2 behind a very efficient start from Masahiro Tanaka, who struck out eight, did not issue a walk, and allowed just a run on 79 pitches over six innings in his first start of the season. Aroldis Chapman got the save by striking out three in the ninth, albeit with two doubles sandwiched in.
New York’s offense came largely from unexpected names at the bottom of the order – all the RBI were accounted for by Brandon Drury and Tyler Wade, who each drove in a pair.
This was not my favorite baseball viewing experience, but it was early in the season and the only game I had access to that night so I soldiered through. It was the Cubs home opener, and there was various pageantry surrounding their 2016 World Series win that needed to be fulfilled (as an Indians fan I have to admit to being a tad bit annoyed by that), and then there was a long rain delay but the stupid ceremony proceeded before the game, because I guess the fans couldn’t be denied this. I’m sure the Dodgers, who had been beaten by the Cubs in the NLCS, found this even more irritating than I did.
Once the game started, it was a good one, with the Cubs taking a 2-0 lead after four but stranding six. The Dodgers pushed around single tallies in the sixth and eighth to tie it, also loading the bases with none out in the seventh but failing to score. In the ninth John Jay pinch-hit with a single off Sergio Romo and moved to second on a groundout. Kenley Jansen was summoned to face Kris Bryant, who he fanned with Jay swiping third. Anthony Rizzo lined a 1-1 pitch down the left field line for the winning single
The Indians tuned up for the season with an exhibition at the Ballpark at Arlington by launching four homers and getting 6 2/3 innings with just one run allowed from Cody Anderson. As they would win the pennant, the homers kept coming to some extent, but quality pitching from Anderson did not.
You can see I kept this game with my modified version of LL Bean’s pictorial system, which I most often using when scoring off the radio and so unable to record precise (or phonily-precise as the case may be) batted ball locations. One thing the system doesn’t make easy to represent is a foul pop caught by the pitcher; I used my normal symbol indicating foul (`) in the center of the circle, but felt the need to make a note on the bottom of the page explaining what that symbol meant.
Mat Latos faced nine hitters in the first inning, seven of whom reached and eventually scored. Brad Hand came on in relief, allowing the first two hitters he faced to reach, but then settling in to retire thirteen of the final fourteen he faced. The Braves pinned another disaster inning on a top Marlin pitcher in the ninth, as Steve Cishek retired the first batter he faced and then allowed four straight to reach. Miami managed only two runs, clustered around Donovan Solano’s pinch-hit triple in the fifth. I was going to point out that this game features an Ichiro as a Marlin sighting, but had forgotten that he actually appeared in more games for the Marlins (432) than the Yankees (360).
