Different vibe for this opening day

Opening day, at last. A baseball season that was on the brink before it ever began because of the virus outbreak is set to start Thursday night when excitable Max Scherzer and the World Series champion Nationals host $324 million ace Gerrit Cole and the Yankees.

When it does get underway — the DC forecast calls for thunderstorms, the latest rocky inning in this what-can-gowrong game — it’ll mark the most bizarre year in the history of Major League Baseball.

A 60-game season, stars opting out. Ballparks without fans, players wearing masks. Piped-in sound effects, cardboard cutouts for spectators. Spray-painted ads on the mound, pitchers with personal rosin bags.

And a rack of strange rules. DHs in the National League, well, OK. An automatic runner on second to start the 10th inning? C’mon, now.

“Gosh, it’s going to be fun,” Cole said. “It’s going to have fake crowd noise, and going to be 2020 coronavirus baseball.”

Plus a team that still doesn’t know where it’s going to play — barred from Toronto because of health concerns, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays were hoping to roost in Pittsburgh or Baltimore or Buffalo or somewhere else.

“You just have to accept it. Seems like every day there’s a challenge and you just have to overcome it. If this is what it’s going to be, this is what’s going to be,” Scherzer said.

“This is 2020 baseball,” said.

To many fans, that will do. No other choice, really. Four months after the games were supposed to start, strange ball is better than no ball, right? We’ll see.

Opening day brings a tasty doubleheader: a marquee pitching matchup in Washington, followed by the nightcap at Dodger Stadium when Clayton Kershaw taking on the Giants.

One player Kershaw won’t face: six-time All-Star, threetime champion and former MVP Buster Posey. The Giants catcher and his wife have adopted twin identical girls who were prematurely born, and he’s among about a dozen players who have chosen to sit out this year.

“From a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision for me,” Posey said. “From a family standpoint, making a decision to protect children, our children, it was relatively easy.” he