Yankees win stormy opener
WASHINGTON — The pandemicshortened Major League Baseball season finally started Thursday night, with no fans, Nationals star Juan Soto sidelined by COVID-19 and a 4-1 storm-halted victory for the New York Yankees over reigning champ Washington behind Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge.
What began as a muggy, cloudy hot evening turned into a serious downpour, replete with rumbles of thunder, flashes of lightning and swirls of wind, prompting a delay in the top of the sixth inning. After waiting one hour, 58 minutes — 15 minutes more than were played — the game was called off and goes into the books as a win for New York.
Three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (0-1) had struck out 11 and was still in the game for the Nationals when action stopped, his pitch count nearing 100. He allowed a two-run homer to 2017 NL MVP Stanton that travelled 459 feet in the first, an RBI double to 2017 AL Rookie of the Year Judge in the third, and an RBI single to Stanton in the fifth.
Cole (1-0) looked every bit the player the Yankees hoped for when they signed him as a free agent to a $324 million US, nineyear contract, the largest deal for a pitcher. He gave up just one hit in his five innings: Adam Eaton’s solo shot in the first — a ball that landed on one of the blue advertising tarps now stretching over unused seats at Nationals Park.
This was the official beginning of what is planned as a regular season with just 60 games — instead of the customary 162 — with, at least at the outset, no spectators — instead of the 40,000 or so that usually would be at opening day in D.C. — and with key rules changes.
Those include Thursday’s agreement to expand the playoffs from 10 to 16 teams; using designated hitters in every game, not just at American League ballparks; and the gimmicky runner-on-second-base to start each halfinning in extras.
In a fitting choice for a pregame ceremony that included nods to the Nationals’ title and the Black Lives Matter movement — players from both teams jointly held a long black piece of cloth, then knelt along the foul lines before standing for the national anthem — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S.’s leading infectious disease expert, threw out the first pitch while wearing a mask. His toss missed the mark by a lot.
The 266 days between the final game of the World Series — Scherzer started Game 7 for Washington against Cole’s former team, the Houston Astros — and Thursday marked the longest gap between games since professional baseball leagues started in 1871.
“A long wait,” Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres said.