1. Opening Day feels like a postseason game. The hype, the anticipation, a sold-out crowd, the stadium bunting and two No. 1 starters going all create that feeling. And after Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge struck out to open the game and Max Fried struggled to throw strikes in the first inning, it certainly felt like a Yankees postseason game. Thankfully, that feeling didn’t last long.
The game changed in the bottom of the first after Fried allowed a four-pitch, leadoff walk to Luis Arraez (who would rather do anything than walk) and soon faced a first-and-third, one-out jam after Grisham misread a shallow fly ball. Fried bounced back to strike out the right-handed Willy Adames and got Jung Hoo Lee to ground out to end the inning and that was the game.
2. That was the game because for at least one night the ‘Run It Back’ offense lit up Logan Webb, the 2025 National League innings and strikeout leader. In the second inning, Giancarlo Stanton lined a one-out single and Jazz Chisholm got drilled by a pitch and then Jose Caballero drove in the season’s first run with a single to left. The speedy Caballero took second on the throw into the infield and then came around to score when Ryan McMahon followed with a two-run single up the middle to make it 3-0.
“I think guys were just going up there doing what the game asked them to do and take their knocks,” McMahon said. “We put a bunch of balls in play, found a couple of holes and ended up a good number.”
3. Austin Wells then also singled before Grisham drove in two more with a triple to right-center. The Yankees had a 5-0 lead and that would be more than enough for Fried. After being unable to complete five innings in his first start and Yankees debut last March despite being staked to a 14-4 lead, Fried made this lead stand up.
4. Fried didn’t have his best stuff and for most of the first inning he didn’t have any stuff and still somehow pitched pitch 6 1/3 innings of three-hit scoreless baseball.
“That’s what an ace looks like when he’s grinding,” Boone said. “He set the tone for us.”
5. Fried looked like the pitcher who led the league in wins last year and the pitcher the Yankees went 22-10 with on the mound. The pitcher who didn’t lose a start until May 30 last season.
“It wasn’t the sharpest, but at the end of the day, we won the game,” Fried said. “I got deep into the game. You take it and you move on.”
“You take it and you move on” makes Fried sound like he lost the game. Yes, I will gladly “take” 6 1/3 scoreless innings and “move on.”
6. Webb struggled against the Yankees on Opening Day in 2023 at Yankee Stadium and again last April at the Stadium and then again in this one. For as filthy as Webb looked in the first inning, it was shocking to see the Yankees have such resounding success against him in the second inning, especially so quickly. Those five runs came in a flash as the Yankees’ game plan was clearly to attack Webb early in the count and worked as well as it possibly could against a pitcher of Webb’s caliber.
7. The Yankees tacked on two more runs against Webb in the fifth when they opened the inning with three straight singles and then capitalized on an Adames throwing error to make it 7-0. The Yankees managed to score seven runs in a game against one of the very best pitchers in the game with only one extra-base hit (the Grisham triple) and with Aaron Judge providing nothing as the reigning MVP went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts and a groundout. It’s good to know the Yankees can win when Judge does absolutely nothing.
“On a night when we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark, we had a lot of good, pressurized at-bats,” Boone said. “We can beat you in a lot of different ways.”
8. The offense and Fried completely removed Boone from the game. By the time Boone had make in-game decisions, the Yankees had a seven-run lead and were eight outs away from a win. The old adage is “good pitching beats good hitting” and the adage around here is “getting good pitching and good hitting will always beat Boone.” I will take as many of these smooth, easy wins as possible.
“You want to get that first win, first hits,” Boone said. “You want to get into that normal rhythm of the season, which takes a little bit of time. Obviously, it was a great way to start things.”
9. There’s nothing worse than the day off after Opening Day. You wait so long for baseball to return (especially after this winter weather) and then it does and it’s immediately gone again. But there’s nothing worse than losing on Opening Day and then having to sit around and mull that loss for a couple of days. When the Yankees win on Opening Day it makes the one-day break that much easier to take and the Yankees have done a lot of winning on Opening Day in recent years (8-1 in the Boone era).
“You want to get that first win, first hits,” Boone said. “You want to get into that normal rhythm of the season, which takes a little bit of time. Obviously, it was a great way to start things.”
10. It will be Cam Schlittler against Robbie Ray when the two teams resume their seasons on Friday afternoon. The Giants have never seen Schlittler, so advantage Yankees there, though the regular Yankees outside of Judge have abysmal numbers against Ray, so advantage Giants there. Expect Boone to utilize his three right-handed bench bats in the second game of the season, but before then, take the next day to enjoy the result of the first game of the season.
Last modified: Mar 26, 2026
