Ah, Opening Day with its clean laundry smell, its pomp and unfurling flags and unblemished stat sheets and fresh cut grass and fresh faces. The excitement, the promise of unwrapping a new season. All of it Easter egg sweet and redolent of a pastel rebirth. A baseball mirage—but it never lasts.
The Paradiso of Spring Training complexes, of concrete and clearly laid-out paths to improvement, of Scottsdale! culminate in that initial triumphant “Play Ball!” But after the first pitch is thrown, it doesn’t take long for the sobering realities of the game to remind fans and players alike how the cookie actually crumbles.
Reality didn’t waste much time making itself known to the San Francisco Giants in their 6 – 4 loss against the San Diego Padres.
Yu Darvish and his kitchen sink mix will crease a hitter’s duds pretty quickly. Jung Hoo Lee ripping the first pitch he saw…just foul; Jung Hoo Lee ripping a 100 MPH line drive…right into the first baseman’s glove; Jung Hoo Lee dropping his first career hit into centerfield…
…only to be picked off seconds later to end the inning. Yeah, that will do it too.
Ah, yes. Reality…kinda sucks.
Just ask Luke Jackson, who had his 2023 season delayed after missing the entire 2022 season due to Tommy John surgery, only to have his 2024 season—all shiny and new—do face-plant off the mound 12 pitches into it.
Called from the bullpen to preserve San Francisco’s newly acquired 3-2 lead in the 7th, Jackson surrendered two weakly-struck hits before walking the number-9 hitter with an errant and discomforting slider that warranted immediate dugout attention.
Frustratingly weak-yet-effective contact, overly-aggressive throws down to second with a runner at third, injuries, poorly-located fastballs—yeah, reality came hard for the Giants’ and its bullpen in the 7th. The lead Jackson and Ryan Walker were brought into protect was erased and flipped before the first out of the season was recorded by the relief corps. By inning’s end, the Padres had answered San Francisco’s two runs with four of their own.
Starter Logan Webb had his bubble popped too—our collective exasperation already in midseason with another quality start spoiled.
Maybe a little too predictable with the change-up, and then leaving it a little up on occasion, but there’s not much to gripe about in terms of the right-hander’s performance. Webb’s first trip through the San Diego lineup was as clean as ever with 4 strikeouts and 3 ground outs, led by his change-up and a slippery two-seam-sinker-screwball that defied physics along with definition.
Still, in terms of run support, the offense came up short for the club’s ace. They took the lead with a pair of doubles from Michael Conforto and Nick Ahmed in the 3rd, but couldn’t put up a crooked number, nor were they able to convert lead-off singles from LaMonte Wade Jr. and Matt Chapman into more run support for their ace. Even with a six-month hiatus, the team hadn’t missed a beat.
Four pitches after a lead-off walk to Manny Machado in the 5th, the Padres had tied the game with consecutive singles from Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar. Add in another doink-single and a RBI groundout, and San Diego had taken their first lead of the night while reality had officially re-taken its form as a monkey draped over Webb’s back.
Luis Campusano’s 2-strike flare with an exit-velocity of 71 MPH somehow found grass in right and set up Tyler Wade’s 55 MPH dribbler, so perfectly and poorly struck up the first baseline to plate the Padres’ second run while advancing runners into scoring position with less than two outs. The inning might’ve broke Webb’s spirit for good if not for an accurate throw from Thairo Estrada and firm tag by Patrick Bailey to nab Profar trying to score on another grounder.
And when did reality come for us fans?
That rapid succession of singles against Webb to start San Diego’s scoring?
Or maybe the fact that the night’s offensive flame was almost entirely sparked and stoked by the much-maligned Michael Conforto going 3-for-4 with a cheeky 2-outs-in-the-9th solo shot and the veteran shortstop Nick Ahmed who replaced Brandon Crawford, leapfrogged top-prospect Marco Luciano and then went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs hitting out of the nine-hole?
Or was it that a sacrifice bunt was called for? Or was it the fact that the sac bunt actually worked, setting up Ahmed’s second RBI of the game and Lee’s sacrifice fly—a deft piece of situational, 2-strike hitting that gave a meaningful, though ephemeral, late-inning lead.
No, the shine of Opening Day never lasts. A couple of innings in, and the umpire’s strike zone is making us talk to ourselves, a defensive miscue has us on our feet and pacing. Somehow I’m already sour and sore, feeling spurned and burned and cranky and anxious. What if Mike Yastrzemski strikes out 384 times and what if Patrick Bailey throws out 0 runners and what if Jorge Soler hits 0 homer runs while Michael Conforto hits 50—but all of them are solo shots that come in the 9th inning in a blow-out and do nothing but increase his dollar price during free agency next season and are the Padres actually going to be good this year and is there really 161 more of these?
Take a deep breath, drink a cool glass of water…reality doesn’t suck, it just hurts when it barrels into you like that. I know that it’s OPENING DAY, but, yeah, it’s just opening day. Save the grumble-and-guff for later. Air your grievances in April! You can panic in May! Any takeaways gleaned from this 6 – 4 loss should be positive because it’s a long season and I care about your well being, friend. So repeat after me: Logan Webb is still really good and is still really fun to watch; the infield of Chapman, Ahmed, and Estrada is going to be airtight; Lee’s bat-to-ball skills are for real; Conforto might be finally recovered from his shoulder injury; and there’s going to be a tomorrow.
Yes, there’s really 161 more of these.
