Players arrived in Baltimore along a bright orange carpet, in St. Louis from the back of pickup trucks, and in San Diego amid erupting, glittering fireworks. A strikeout record was broken in Milwaukee, a fading legend homered in Houston, an unbeatable pitcher was beaten — and beaten badly — in New York.
In Los Angeles, Will Ferrell drove the World Series trophy into Dodger Stadium, lending Hollywood flair to a celebration of a baseball dynasty.
This was Opening Day.
Hope is forever the theme of this most revered baseball holiday. A long winter gives way to an approaching spring, and no one feels the dog days of summer. Twenty-two Major League Baseball teams got started on Thursday. History was their backdrop, but possibility was their refrain.
And if hope is about progress, it was found even in a computer that turned balls into strikes, changing the course of key at-bats one robot umpire at a time.
This was an important moment for Major League Baseball. Opening Day is always an event, but last year’s World Series was a thriller, and the World Baseball Classic was a global success. A potential work stoppage looms in the offseason, but for now, baseball has momentum. It felt that way on Thursday.
Playing a one-off season opener on Wednesday — Yankees vs. Giants only on Netflix — did little to change the all-encompassing feel of Thursday’s slate of 11 games. It was a barrage from coast to coast, 12 hours of near-constant action, beginning with a reminder that truly anything can happen.
In today’s game, few baseball superstars shine brighter than Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, who pitched the first game of the day against the New York Mets at Citi Field. The Pirates even gave Skenes an early lead, which he promptly lost in the worst start of his career. He allowed five runs and recorded only two outs. He walked two batters and hit another. His center fielder, Oneil Cruz, botched two fly balls, and the soft hits just kept coming.
In baseball, anything can happen, and even Superman falls down sometimes.
Paul Skenes is not used to such early exits. (Ishika Samant / Getty Images)
But this Opening Day was not without heroics.
Mike Trout is the best player of his generation, but he’s also 34 and hasn’t been healthy enough to shine the past five years. On Thursday, he drew three walks, stole a base and hit a 403-foot home run that stood as the game-winner. This was Trout as the game will ultimately remember him, at a time when it was coming close to forgetting him.
But baseball has always celebrated the best of its superstars. Anthony Rizzo returned to Wrigley Field on Thursday, David Eckstein was back at Busch Stadium, and outside of Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, there’s now a giant Red clock, a gift from Reds icon Joey Votto.
Some day, the city of Detroit will want to honor Tarik Skubal. He’s a free agent at the end of this season, but for now, he remains at the heart of the Tigers’ playoff ambitions. He pitched six dominant innings on Thursday. So did Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet, and young Reds starter Andrew Abbott, but the pitching line of the day belonged to second-year Brewers starter Jacob Misiorowski — The Miz — who gave up a home run to the first batter he faced, then proceeded to strike out 11 batters without allowing another run.
Misiorowski broke the Brewers record for Opening Day strikeouts while the White Sox tied a modern baseball record for the most strikeouts in a nine-inning game since 1900. They struck out 20 times.
Of course, it’s said that records are made to be broken, and Orioles right fielder Tyler O’Neill saw his own record-breaking streak come to an end on Thursday. He had a hit, a walk and a run in a 2-1 win against the Twins, but O’Neill failed to go deep, breaking his streak of six consecutive Opening Days with a home run.
Maybe Carson Benge or JJ Wetherholt will one day make a run at that record. Both made their big league debuts on Thursday — Benge in right field for the Mets, Wetherholt leading off and playing second base for the Cardinals — and both homered. So, too, did Guardians rookie Chase DeLauter, who last fall became the sixth player in league history to debut in the playoffs.
The Phillies’ 22-year-old center fielder, Justin Crawford, had two hits in his debut, and the Tigers’ 21-year-old third baseman, Kevin McGonigle, went 4-for-5 in his first game above Double A. Another 21-year-old, Red Sox left fielder Roman Anthony, went 3-for-4 with a walk in his first Opening Day.
It’s not supposed to be that easy.
Don’t tell Brendan Donovan that, though. He launched a fastball off Cleveland Guardians starter Tanner Bibee into the right-field seats at T-Mobile Park for a home run in his first at-bat as a Seattle Mariner.
Other developments looked more familiar. Dodgers catcher Will Smith delivered the final stamp on the 2025 season with his go-ahead homer in Game 7 of the World Series, and he supplied a two-run blast against the Diamondbacks on Thursday evening. Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who else? — tossed six solid innings for the win.
And, yes, the Dodgers won their season opener as they embark on their bid for a three-peat.
Baseball is famously a game of adjustments. It’s about adapting and evolving, and MLB this year introduced a challenge system for balls and strikes. Let the record show that Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez was the first player to tap his helmet and have a call overturned by the Automated Ball-Strike system. Later, Anthony and the Red Sox capitalized on an overturned called third strike to score key ninth-inning insurance runs.
On this Opening Day, there was hope even in bad calls that should have been strike three.
With reports from The Athletic‘s Zack Meisel
