Major League Baseball kicked off its season on Sunday with three entertaining divisional matchups. The Chicago Cubs faced the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium; the San Francisco Giants played the Arizona Diamondbacks in the open air at Chase Field; and the New York Yankees played the inaugural game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Each of the away teams came up short, but not without a fight.
Thriller on Opening Day in St. Louis!
— ESPN (@espn) April 3, 2017
The Cardinals win on a walk-off RBI against the defending World Series champs. pic.twitter.com/811CBQV9tX
Cubs late game heroics not enough
After trailing the entire game against the Cardinals, who were led by a great performance from Carlos Martinez, Catcher Willson Contreras hit a three-run home run in the ninth inning to tie the Opening Day game for the defending World Series Champions.
Contreras also got the offense going in the eighth inning when both Rizzo and Bryant, the Cubs' two best hitters, left the bases loaded. However, on the defensive side of the ball, Jon Lester and Contreras had trouble building chemistry after David Ross retired in the offseason.
The Cardinals wasted no time in their response to the Cubs' sudden offense. Randall Grichuk, who hit a home run in the eighth inning, walked off Opening Day's nightcap with an RBI single.
The Diamondbacks had 5% chance to win with 2 outs and no one on in the bottom of the 9th, according to @EliasSports win probability model.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 2, 2017
D-Backs escape with victory over Giants
After leading the entire game behind two home runs from ace Madison Bumgarner, both Derek Law and closer Mark Melancon, who is new to the team but is a three-time All Star, were unable to close the game.
Melancon gave up four straight hits with two outs. Chris Owings ended the game with a walk-off single to give the Diamondbacks a 6-5 victory to start the season.
Yankees fans currently watching their ace get lit up by the Rays pic.twitter.com/RC7MSrmvQa
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) April 2, 2017
Rays dominate the Yankees
The Yankees were losing right from the start in this first game of the season.
The Rays had no trouble hitting Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka, who gave up 7 earned runs in 2.2 innings, including 3 in the bottom of the first. Tampa Bay never looked back as they led the entire game with Chris Archer giving up just 2 earned runs in seven stellar innings against a young and explosive Yankees offense.
The Yankees were hoping for more from their team in this outing after winning 24 of their 33 spring training outings. The one bright spot was an RBI double from 24-year-old right fielder Aaron Judge, who has a lot of potential, but struggled heavily with strikeouts last season.
