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Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.

Opening Day was full of thrilling moments. Isn’t it always? 

From the first game, when the Mets jumped all over Paul Skenes, to the last games, which included the Dodgers starting their World Series three-peat quest with a big win on banner night, it was another memorable start to the season. 

Let’s find the best players on the field yesterday. Here are three top hitting performances, three top pitching performances and three stellar MLB debuts from Opening Day.

BEST HITTING PERFORMANCES 

1) Mike Trout, Angels 

1-for-2, HR, 3 BB, SB 

Is Trout back? It sure looks like Trout is back. The Angels’ three-time MVP crushed his fifth career Opening Day home run, stole a base and just looked like his old self in center field. And man, Trout still has that sweet swing. 

2) Chase DeLauter, Guardians 

3-for-5, 2 HR, 2 RBIs, 3 R

Playing his first career regular-season game — DeLauter made his MLB debut in the postseason last year — MLB Pipeline’s No. 46 overall prospect smacked two home runs, including a 111.1 mph rocket in the ninth inning, and led the Guardians to an Opening Day win over the Mariners. Two days ago in this very newsletter, we wrote about how DeLauter looked like a future star after a monster Spring Training. Well, the star has arrived.  

3) Roman Anthony, Red Sox 

3-for-4 (incl. 112.3 mph 1B), BB, R 

Anthony might be more than a star. He might be one of the best players in the whole league. The 21-year-old had a terrific rookie season in 2025. He was a beast for Team USA at the World Baseball Classic. And now Anthony has started his sophomore season with a three-hit Opening Day performance — plus a game-changing challenge that turned a strikeout into a walk in the ninth inning. 

BEST PITCHING PERFORMANCES 

1) Cristopher Sánchez, Phillies 

6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 10 K, 0 BB, W

The 2025 NL Cy Young runner-up is earning his big contract extension already. Sánchez was lights-out in his first career Opening Day start, pitching six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts against the Rangers. Half of those K’s were on the ace lefty’s signature changeup, which got 130 strikeouts last year by itself. Sánchez’s Opening Day changeup K’s averaged 86.1 mph with 20 inches of horizontal movement. Filthy.

2) Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers 

5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 11 K, W 

The Miz has some of the most electric stuff in the big leagues, and the 23-year-old showed it in his first Opening Day start. Misiorowski set Milwaukee’s Opening Day strikeout recordwith 11 K’s in just five innings. Nine of those K’s were on heaters, four of those fastballs were 99 mph or faster, and the very fastest one clocked at 100.6. Miz was just blowing White Sox hitters away. 

3) Garrett Crochet, Red Sox 

6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 8 K, W

Crochet is the top challenger to Tarik Skubal for the AL Cy Young Award. And while Skubal had a typically dominant start himself on Opening Day — six innings, one unearned run, six strikeouts — Crochet was just a little bit better. The Red Sox ace was locked in over six scoreless innings with eight K’s against the Reds. It’s going to be fun watching him and Skubal try to outdo each other all year. 

BEST MLB DEBUTS

1) Kevin McGonigle, Tigers 

4-for-5, 2 2B, 2 RBIs, 2 R

McGonigle could’ve been the No. 1 hitting performance, period, but we wanted to save him for this section. The incredible debuts were one of the biggest stories of Opening Day 2026, and McGonigle’s topped them all. MLB Pipeline’s No. 2 overall prospect rapped out four hits in his first career game and looked like the best player on the field. It was a historic day for the 21-year-old. 

2) Carson Benge, Mets 

1-for-3, HR, 2 R, 2 BB

In the Mets’ romp over Skenes and the Pirates, the first MLB hit for their 23-year-old outfielder was a home run. Benge showed off the sweet swing that won MLB’s No. 16 overall prospecta spot on the Opening Day roster. We went with Benge here, but honorable mention to the Cardinals’ JJ Wetherholt, MLB’s No. 5 prospect — who also homered in his MLB debut. 

3) Munetaka Murakami, White Sox 

1-for-2, HR, 2 BB 

Murakami’s wasn’t your typical prospect debut, but the Japanese star slugger arrived in the Major Leagues with a bang. Murakami — who belted 246 home runs over eight seasons in Japan, including 56 in a historic 2022 season — got his first MLB blast in his final at-bat of Opening Day. 

 

 

WHAT TO WATCH ON OPENING DAY, PART 2

Yesterday was Opening Day. Today, it’s … Opening Day, again. 

Six teams are playing their first game of the season tonight, including the reigning AL pennant winners. The Blue Jays host the A’s in Toronto at 7:07 p.m. ET, followed by Rockies-Marlins at 7:10 p.m. ET and Royals-Braves at 7:15 p.m. ET. 

Here are three things to watch for. 

1) Vlad Jr.’s postseason follow-up 

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. looked like the best hitter in the world last postseason, when he batted .397 with eight home runs and a 1.2889 OPS on the Jays’ run to Game 7 of the World Series. What will Vladdy do for an encore in 2026?

2) A duel of ace lefties in Atlanta 

The last Opening Day starting pitching matchup is one of the best: the Braves’ Chris Sale against the Royals’ Cole Ragans. Sale won the NL Cy Young Award two years ago and had a 2.58 ERA in 2025. Ragans was limited by injury last year but struck out a ridiculous 38% of the batters he faced when he did pitch. He’s a Cy Young contender when healthy. 

3) The WBC champs return 

The Royals-Braves game features several stars of the World Baseball Classic-champion Venezuela team … on both sides. The Braves have Ronald Acuña Jr., of course, whose biggest moment of the Classic was his leadoff home run against Samurai Japan ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the quarterfinals, which sparked Venezuela to dethrone the defending WBC champs. The Royals have World Baseball Classic MVP Maikel Garcia and Venezuela team captain Salvador Perez. 

WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE CHALLENGES? 

Yesterday was the first full day of ABS challenges (aka, batters, pitchers and catchers being able to challenge balls and strikes). So what are the results so far? 

Well, the players who did challenge were pretty darn good at it, especially the catchers. Like the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez, who had the first successful challenge of the MLB seasonand went 2-for-2 challenging behind the plate.

Overall, 61% of challenges around the league have been successful, including a 56% overturn rate by batters (flipping strikes into balls) and 67% by fielders (flipping balls into strikes). All of those fielder overturns are by catchers, as only one pitcher challenged a call on Opening Day — the Phillies’ Zach Pop — and he lost. 

You can see all the key challenge stats at Baseball Savant’s ABS dashboard. 

FAREWELL, J-HEY

Jason Heyward announced his retirement today after a 16-year Major League career. The former All-Star and five-time Gold Glove Award-winning outfielder played for the Braves, Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Astros and Padres and helped lead the Cubs to their historic World Series championship in 2016.    

A HOMER IS A HOMER … OR IS IT?

Ian Happ of the Cubs and Yordan Alvarez both crushed home runs on Opening Day. Except they didn’t. 

What are we talking about? When is a homer not a homer? 

Well, in Alvarez’s case, the Daikin Park roof stole it from him. The Astros slugger crushed a ball straight off the rafters yesterday, sending it caroming into the seats in foul territory down the right-field line. By the ground rules in Houston, that changed a surefire moonshot home run into a plain old foul ball. Sorry, Yordan. 

And Happ? Well, the infamous Wrigley Field winds were at their gusty best on Opening Day. Happ absolutely crushed a ball to deep left field in the ninth inning — but the wind blew it in an incredible 113 feet, according to Weather Applied Metrics. A 435-foot home run turned into a “routine” flyout that didn’t even make it to the warning track. Crazy.  

MLB.com’s Mike Petriello has the breakdown of the Opening Day home runs that weren’t.  

BASEBALL IS FOR ALL AGES

All sorts of people get to throw out ceremonial first pitches over the course of a season. But this one you have to see. 

The Orioles brought out 109-year-old veteran Arthur Green to throw out the first pitch before their Opening Day game at Camden Yards. He threw it to 24-year-old O’s star Gunnar Henderson … only 85 years his junior. 

The Orioles moved to Baltimore in 1954. Green, a diehard O’s fan, was already in his late 30s and a veteran of two wars when that happened. 

 

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