REEL BAD START
Jeter's Fish give up homer on first pitch of '18
The start to the Derek Jeter era was very much not Jeterian.
With the first offering of the 2018 major league season, and the first of Jeter’s second career as Miami CEO, the Cubs’ Ian Happ took Jose Urena deep into the Marlins Park rightfield seats at 12:43 p.m.
Jeter watched as his Marlins fell instantly behind from his seat, two rows back of the Marlins dugout.
After a tumultuous offseason, in which Jeter sold off just about every asset the team had as he begins a rebuild, the early signs indicate this will be ugly in an 8-4 loss to the Cubs in Miami on Thursday.
An inning later, Anthony Rizzo earned a standing ovation from the entire stadium, the cheers mixed with tears.
Rizzo homered into the upper deck in the second inning — an unscripted lump-in-the-throat tribute to the victims of last month’s shooting at his former high school in Parkland, Florida.
“That was probably the most outof-body experience I’ve had hitting a home run in my life,” Rizzo said. “It just felt really good.”
Both teams wore patches to honor those killed, and Rizzo plans to host four families of the victims at Friday’s game. As he crossed home plate after his homer, Rizzo patted the patch on his chest and pointed to the sky.
“Looking up to those kids up there,” he said, “it was a special moment for me.”
Happ, playing in his first Opening Day game, pulled Urena’s first pitch into the seats — the last time anyone hit a home run on the first pitch of the big league season was 1986, when Dwight Evans of the Red Sox connected against future Hall of Famer Jack Morris in Tiger Stadium.
Kyle Schwarber cost the Cubs a run with a misplay in left field, but atoned with a homer in the seventh. A pair of three-run rallies helped Chicago overcome a rocky start by Jon Lester, who lasted only 3 ¹/3 innings.
Jeter, who homered in a win in his first Opening Day with the Yankees in 1996, had less success in his debut as the Marlins’ CEO. Doubles by Kris Bryant and Wilson Contreras in the fourth put the Cubs ahead to stay, and Tommy La Stella contributed a pinch-hit, two-run double.
The Cubs bullpen, revamped after a dismal 2017 postseason, shut out Miami over the final 5 2/3 innings, allowing only one hit. Newcomer Steve Cishek (1-0) stranded four runners in two scoreless innings.
Urena (0-1) needed 36 pitches to get through the first inning, when the Cubs scored three times with only one hit. In his first Opening Day start, Urena allowed five runs in four innings.