SAN DIEGO — Mike Yastrzemski is breathless with excitement. He spent months awaiting this day. He is ready to celebrate a new beginning.
The San Francisco Giants’ season opener against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park? Well, sure. Yastrzemski hasn’t taken a single moment of his major-league life for granted. He stood on the chalk line for the anthem, made a couple of running catches in right field, batted fifth in the lineup against Padres right-hander Yu Darvish, watched teammate Jung Hoo Lee collect his first big-league hit and RBI, and soaked up his fifth Opening Day start in a Giants uniform.
Then Yastrzemski raced back to San Francisco for an even more important Opening Day. He and his wife, Paige, are scheduled to induce labor Friday.
“This being our second, hopefully we can convince them we’re capable of taking care of a child and get out of there quickly,” Yastrzemski said. “Hopefully I’ll be back after a couple days.”
You cannot tell much of anything about a person on the first day of their life. You cannot gauge what kind of personality they will exhibit or what interests they will follow, whether they will snort when they laugh or whether they’ll prefer cake to pie. You only hope that they arrive healthy and with no complications. The rest is a journey of discovery — mostly fulfilling, often joyful, but not without its challenges — that will be revealed over time.
A 162-game season isn’t so different from that. There’s only so much you can learn about a team on Opening Day. The result won’t define your season. The granular stuff — who went hitless, who made an error, who gave up a couple of runs in relief — will not set a fixed course for the remainder of the year.
Barring complications, of course. Opening Day is only a revelation when something goes very, very wrong. You can’t tell how good a team might be after one game. But it doesn’t take long for a significantly flawed team to look very, very exposed.
That’s the congratulatory cigar in the Giants’ 6-4 loss at Petco Park. The Giants didn’t look like a flawed team. On the contrary, they did a lot of things right.
• Logan Webb, after a rocky spring, once again resembled the pitcher the Giants sent to the mound every fifth day last season, when he finished second in National League Cy Young Award balloting. Webb faced the minimum in the first four innings, minimized the damage when the Padres blooped and bled their way to a rally in the fifth, then stranded two runners in the sixth when he struck out Oscar Azocar on his 97th and final pitch of the day.
• The improved infield defense performed as advertised. New third baseman Matt Chapman made a difficult groundball down the line look easy while converting it into an out. Shortstop Nick Ahmed did the same with a groundball deep in the hole. Yastrzemski, not far removed from being a Gold Glove finalist in right field, raced into the corner while catching a line drive. Second baseman Thairo Estrada, playing a step shallow, started a double play after fielding Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 105.6 mph one-hop smash. Later, Estrada fielded a grounder and accurately threw home to cut down a runner at the plate.
• The lineup didn’t exactly break out, but there were signs of life throughout. Lee began his major-league career with a three-pitch strikeout against Darvish but made crisp contact twice after that, and his sacrifice fly gave the Giants a momentary lead in the seventh. Ahmed contributed a pair of RBI hits from the No.9 spot. Michael Conforto, who is determined to have a resurgent season, batted in the No.7 spot and finished a triple short of the cycle. His ninth-inning home run was the hardest-hit ball by either team all afternoon (109.9 mph).
Conforto’s Opening Day:
3-for-4, 2B, HR pic.twitter.com/4N5H2gdadZ
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) March 28, 2024
“From a personal standpoint, it’s the ideal start,” said Conforto, who became the Giants’ 18th Opening Day left fielder in 18 seasons. “I hit a fastball hard. Didn’t do that much in spring. And then staying back to hit a changeup for a homer, that’s a good sign for me, to stay through a ball and drive it to right-center. Staying back, staying balanced, all the things we worked on in the spring are all coming together.”
• The Giants even showed that they can (gasp!) manufacture a run when required. Patrick Bailey’s sacrifice bunt advanced two runners in the seventh and set up Ahmed’s RBI. In that situation last season, the Giants’ previous manager probably would’ve sent up a pinch hitter (Tom Murphy) and interrupted the flow that Bailey had created behind the plate.
• The bullpen had its struggles — Luke Jackson took the loss and walked back to the dugout with a trainer after experiencing lower back spasms — but it was hard not to come away impressed by left-hander Erik Miller, who worked a 1-2-3 inning in his major-league debut and pumped 98 mph heat while recording his first strikeout.
98 MPH gas for your first career K in front of your parents pic.twitter.com/MkKuIaMkCJ
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) March 28, 2024
It wasn’t a flawless effort, obviously. Before Lee could savor a moment to enjoy his hit in the fifth inning, Darvish picked him off. Ahmed ran into an out on the bases. The Padres found success when they challenged the Giants’ outfield arms by taking an extra base or two. If his first heave from center field was any indication, Lee isn’t likely to lead the league in outfield assists. And though Lee is an athletic upgrade in center, it’s already evident he doesn’t have the kind of elite closing speed that can allow a left fielder like Conforto to hug the foul line.
On balance, though, the Giants appeared far from outclassed.
“In the grand scheme, I think we did some really good things out there,” Conforto said. “There’s definitely depth and there’s not much in the way of egos here. I told Bob, ‘I just want to play. Throw me wherever. It doesn’t matter to me.’ I think a lot of guys share that attitude that we’ll adapt. We’ve got good hitters here and that’ll show as we get going.”
“You can’t win ’em all, but I feel pretty good about where we’re at,” Bailey said. “That’s how we’re going to win games: playing good defense, throwing strikes, having good at-bats. I think we did a lot of that. It’s exciting to see Chappy and Nick pick it over there. And Logan, you know, he has a tendency for being pretty good when the lights come on. It was just good to get adrenaline back in the body again.”
That’ll happen when you line up for your first Opening Day. Miller, Lee and right-hander Landen Roupp, who is awaiting his major-league debut, were on a big-league roster for the first time. It was also the first major-league season opener for players like Bailey, athletic utilityman Tyler Fitzgerald, right-hander Keaton Winn and highly touted left-hander Kyle Harrison.
The Giants had five rookies on their roster but Marco Luciano wasn’t among them. He was optioned to Triple A because, as Melvin said, “We feel there’s some development defensively. I think his bat is going to play here right now. Just get more comfortable at the shortstop position.”
The hardest roster conversation for Melvin was with Luis Matos, who hit six doubles and four homers while slugging a team-best .642 in exhibition games but didn’t have a place among the initial 26 guys. That could change Friday, though, as Yastrzemski is set to be placed on the paternity list.
“When you perform that well, there’s an expectation you’ll make the team,” Melvin said. “We played him in what looked like starting lineups (in the spring). So that was probably the most difficult one. You tell him that he’s not being demoted by performance. It’s a numbers game right now. And we’ll have to make another decision tomorrow.”
The Giants might decide they need a 13th pitcher more than temporary outfield coverage. They were already under the 13-pitcher maximum when they set their roster Thursday because they decided to break with 12 and instead carry third catcher Joey Bart, who is out of options and might fetch a slightly higher price in a waiver deal once the Giants face the eventuality of designating him for assignment. And one of those 12 pitchers was essentially an empty spot. Left-hander Blake Snell, who is still getting stretched out after signing his contract March 19, will pitch in a minor-league game Friday in Arizona.
Short of Snell’s making a magnanimous gesture to go on the restricted list, and forfeit a prorated portion of his salary, there was no way for the Giants to avoid burning a roster spot on a pitcher they cannot use in the season’s first week. Now they’re down another pitcher with Jackson out of action for at least a couple of days with a back issue that might not require a trip to the injured list. There’s another move or two on the horizon, too. Winn is lined up to start Sunday’s series finale, but the Giants might need him in relief before then. If so, they’d likely add right-hander Daulton Jefferies to the 40-man roster. At some point, they’ll need a functional fifth starter, too.
“Just because we start here doesn’t mean it’s where we’ll look to be in four or five days,” Melvin said.
There also could be a rainout or two this weekend that changes the calculus. A major-league roster is a perpetual exercise in reading and reacting. You can count on a little more stability when you have a roster loaded with healthy and productive players, though. That’s what the Padres thought they had at this time a year ago when they opened their season at Petco Park and Melvin was the manager in the home dugout. They were coming off another frenetic, high-spending offseason. They were expected to challenge the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves for NL supremacy. They ended up needing to win their final five games just to finish better than .500. Their clubhouse was so chaotic that the Padres approved the Giants’ request to interview Melvin, even though he had one more year on his contract.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Melvin was booed in pregame introductions Thursday. For the genial and respected three-time Manager of the Year winner, it might be the loudest he’s been booed in his baseball life.
But this is a new season. It’s a brand new life. The Giants didn’t start it with a victory. After a nine-inning glance, though, everything important appears to check out. The Giants have all 10 fingers and all 10 toes, and another game on the schedule Friday.
“It’s easy to get down on yourself after the first one,” Webb said. “But we’ve got 161 more of these, which is crazy to think about.”
There will be joy, fulfillment and challenges. And probably sleep deprivation.
(Photo of Logan Webb: Brandon Sloter / Getty Images)
