Category: Sports News

Freddy Peralta will take the mound for Opening Day on Thursday, a significant honor for his official welcome to the Mets and Citi Field.

Barring something unforeseen, though, the nod will not be paired with an extension that would have opened up the possibility for more Opening Day privileges.

Peralta and the Mets are taking their will-they-won’t-they dance into the regular season. During Wednesday’s workout in Queens, both Peralta and president of baseball operations David Stearns declined comment concerning the possibility of an extension for a two-time All-Star pitcher whom the Mets acquired for a significant prospect package ahead of his walk year.

Peralta, for his part, smiled when giving his latest “no comment,” a persistent wink that has led to some speculation that the two could be working on a new pact.

Stearns clearly likes Peralta — he has acquired him twice, first with the Brewers, after which Stearns and Peralta agreed to a five-year extension in 2020 — and was willing to send top 100 prospects Jett Williams and Brandon Sproat to Milwaukee to bring in what the team hopes is its new ace.

Stearns also does not go deep with many starting pitchers — Sean Manaea’s three-year deal is Stearns’ longest with the Mets — and the 29-year-old Peralta presents an interesting case. He has been as reliable as any starter the past three years, each of which he turned in at least 30 starts while owning a 3.40 ERA.

And for a team whose clubhouse was suspect last season, Peralta arrived with a sparkling reputation that has only been strengthened.

“It’s a big smile, it’s authenticity, it’s love of baseball, appreciation for his teammates, support of his teammates,” Stearns said, “and we’ve seen all of that over the last six, seven weeks in camp.

“And we’re also going to see a really good competitor when he takes the mound. I think that’s sort of the trick with Freddy. He can be this genuine, positive individual, and then when he takes the mound in front of 45,000 people, he’s as competitive as anybody. It’s a lot of fun to watch.”

Peralta has been excited about pitching and living in New York, where the Dominican Republic native has plenty of family, and has been happy with his first months with the club, where “we are all on the same page here. We are all connected,” he said.

These are a couple ingredients that can help when extensions are discussed.

Of course, the pitcher, club and its chemistry will only begin getting tested Thursday against the Pirates and Paul Skenes.

“Very excited, grateful about the opportunity,” Peralta said. “I know it’s going to be great.”

SAN FRANCISCO — More than any other team this spring, the Yankees racked up a quality sample size of data for the automated ball-strike system.

The time for trial and error is now over, but Aaron Boone hopes their aggressiveness remains, within reason.

As the regular season got underway Wednesday with the Yankees squaring off against the Giants at Oracle Park, so too did the use of the ABS in games that counted, with Boone’s club trying to make the most of it.

“I feel like we’re going to be good at it,” Boone said a few hours before first pitch. “That’s the expectation. I’m sure we’ll continue to evolve with it. My thoughts on it now maybe are a little bit different than even at the start [of camp], somewhat. So I would imagine as the season unfolds, those things will continue to evolve and we’ll try to exploit it as best we can.”

The Yankees used 102 challenges during spring training, the most of any team, winning 54 of them. Their batters won 49 percent (24-for-49) of their challenges while their catchers and pitchers won 57 percent (30-for-53).

Entering the season, Boone said he will not have any hard and fast rules about who can or cannot challenge, though he has voiced his opinion about it in meetings with his players at the end of camp.

“I’ve told some pitchers, like, ‘It’s frowned upon,’ ” Boone said. “But I feel like we’ve done a really good job of it this spring. I mean, it’s spring, so it’s hard to judge it totally, because especially some veteran players are probably trying out the limits of it, when maybe they wouldn’t otherwise. But I expect us to be really good at it.

“Really just trying to get our guys to understand leverage intuitively, instinctively, in the moment. Again, I want them to be aggressive, but obviously there’s times when it’s a bad idea to challenge one that you’re not certain on. Our pitchers, for the most part, have done a pretty good job. They’re not outright forbidden from doing it, but I want them to lean on their catcher.”

Some pitchers have said they do not plan on challenging because they are too emotional on the mound and think everything is a strike — along with often not having the best view of the pitch as it crosses the plate.

Teams will have two challenges per game and get to keep them if they are successful. There may be some inclination to save the challenges for late in the game in high-leverage moments, but Boone has argued that the biggest moment of a game could come in the third inning, depending on the situation. He just wants his players to keep leverage in the back of their mind for when to pull the trigger on a challenge.

Boone has also given his players instant feedback on their challenges during the season, often bluntly.

“I’ve been very direct with our guys when things have happened — good one, ‘Good,’ bad one, ‘Hey, that was terrible. Like that’s a 10 out of 10 bad,’ ” Boone said. “That’s how I’ve been with them. I told [José] Caballero one last week, I said, ‘No. Awful.’ [Carlos] Lagrange [on Monday], ‘That one’s for the catcher.’ So it’s been my little pet project if you will to try and just be on it as best I can. But I think guys have a real good feel for it.”

And while the ABS may take away some of the in-game arguing from managers, Boone, who has led the American League in ejections for five straight years, does not believe that will be going away entirely.

“I’m sure I will [find a way],” Boone said with a grin. “But we’ll see.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The toughest decisions Buster Posey had to make in his second time setting the Giants’ Opening Day roster revolved around three spots.

Posey opted for specialized skill sets over future potential by selecting Jared Oliva and Jerar Encarnacion over Luis Matos as San Francisco’s backup outfielders.

He decided to deprioritize platoon advantages by sending Drew Gilbert and Will Brennan, two left-handed-hitting outfielders, to the minor leagues, leaving first-year manager Tony Vitello with five right-handed hitters on his bench.

And he decided to go with new additions rather than known quantities to round out the Giants’ bullpen, selecting righty Caleb Kilian and lefty Ryan Borucki over Spencer Bivens and Tristan Beck, who both spent much of 2025 with the big-league club.

“The Matos one was hard,” Posey told a group of beat writers, including The California Post, after setting the Giants’ 26-man roster ahead of their season opener Wednesday against the Yankees. “Ultimately, [we] felt like carrying Oliva with what he can do on the basepaths, defensively, is a weapon for us. … With Jerar, the hope is to have some power.”

Matos, a 24-year-old former top prospect, was out of options and designated for assignment. Posey said the Giants are hopeful he clears waivers, but it’s unlikely given his pedigree.

While Encarnacion was also out of options, and Oliva had to be added to the 40-man roster as a non-roster invitee this spring, Posey said the decision had as much to do with a Giants lineup that is expected to have everyday players in at least eight of the nine spots.

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“The discussion we’ve had internally is that we feel fortunate that we have a group of position players that wants to be out there every day,” Posey said. “It’s gonna be our job, Tony’s job, medical’s job, to make sure that we keep them as fresh and out there as much as possible.”

The pair of left-handed outfield options would have provided similar speed and defense as Oliva, but Posey said he wanted both to get everyday at-bats after Gilbert missed a chunk of spring training with a shoulder impingement and Brennan returns from injuries last season.

The battle to back up Patrick Bailey at catcher was one of the closest-fought all spring, with Rule 5 pick Daniel Susac beating out Eric Haase, who was released by San Francisco.

Susac became the first Rule 5 selection to make the Giants’ roster out of spring training since Blake Sabol in 2022, but Posey said he didn’t take Susac’s Rule 5 status into consideration.

“I really wanted to see which player stood out the most, and both played well,” Posey said. “Daniel, I think the most important part, carried himself well defensively and swung the bat well also.”

Posey’s most anticipated decision came last week, when the Giants optioned top prospect Bryce Eldridge to Triple-A. The 21-year-old first baseman responded to the demotion by homering twice in exhibition games the past three days.

Posey believes a conversation with vice president of player development Randy Winn got Eldridge back on track after a poor ending to spring at the plate, though he didn’t commit to a timeline for the top prospect to join the big-league club.

“I think he got a little bit technical and mechanical in spring training,” Posey said. “Randy simply said just make sure you see the ball. That’s the most important thing: to see the ball. Because he’s such a physical force. For a 21-year-old, the skill set is already very, very refined as a hitter. …

“Bryce has a bright future in front of him. I think what he’s got going for him the most is his belief in his own ability but also from what I can tell his understanding of the changes that he needs to make to become the best player.”

The San Francisco Giants play the very first game of the 2026 MLB season tonight against the New York Yankees at Oracle Park. As a reminder, this game will only be broadcast on Netflix.

Taking the mound for the Giants will be right-handed ace Logan Webb, who concluded the 2025 season with a 3.22 ERA, 2.60 FIP, with 224 strikeouts to 46 walks in 207 innings pitched, finishing fourth in Cy Young Award voting.

He’ll be facing off against Yankees southpaw Max Fried, who concluded the 2025 season with a 2.86 ERA, 3.07 FIP with 189 strikeouts to 51 walks in 195.1 innings pitched, also finishing fourth in Cy Young Award voting for the American League.

Game #1

Who: San Francisco Giants vs. New York Yankees

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: 5:05 p.m. PT

Regional broadcast: n/a

National broadcast: Netflix

Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM

After a glacially slow winter and a spring that flew by, Opening Day is here! The Yankees begin their quest for No. 28 after the 2025 season ended in disappointing fashion, getting rolled by the Blue Jays in four games in the ALDS. The Giants meanwhile are hoping to get back to the postseason after missing out on the playoffs with a .500 or worse record in each of the last four seasons. They’ve made it to the playoffs just once since 2016.

San Francisco team president Buster Posey has overseen some major signings and trades already in his short tenure at the helm of the front office, perhaps none more noteworthy than hiring Tony Vitello as manager despite the former Tennessee Volunteers head coach possessing zero professional baseball experience either as a player or coach. The Yankees on the other hand were one of the least ambitious teams of the offseason, happy to run it back with last year’s squad and making only minor additions in hope of a better outcome. There’s new ground being broken this Opening Day, with Netflix hosting its first-ever MLB broadcast. It is blackout-free.

Max Fried is named the Opening Day starter for the first time with the Yankees after earning the distinction three times with the Braves. The 32-year-old southpaw has made four starts at Oracle Park in his career, pitching to a 2.59 ERA with a 23:8 strikeout-to-walk ratio and .209 batting average allowed across 24.1 innings. Look for him to lean on the cutter against the Giants’ righty-heavy lineup, a pitch which went from an afterthought to his most-frequently used pitch after joining the Yankees. Fried finished fourth in last year’s AL Cy Young race after going 19-5 in 32 starts, with a 2.86 ERA (142 ERA+), 3.07 FIP, and 189 strikeouts in 195.1 innings.

Logan Webb has been named the Giants’ Opening Day starter for the fifth year in a row. He’s a throwback workhorse in this era of five-and-dive starters, with the most starts (132), innings pitched (820), and second-most fWAR (19.1) of any qualified starter over the last four seasons. He’s a sinker-sweeper-changeup guy and one of the preeminent ground ball and command artists in the game, placing well into the 90th percentile in groundball and walk rates across the last five years, though he did strike out over 200 batters for the first time in his career last season. He’s coming off his third-straight top-six NL Cy Young finish having gone 15-11 in 34 starts, with a 3.22 ERA (124 ERA+), 2.60 FIP, and 224 strikeouts in 207 innings.

There are both familiar and new faces in Yankees lineup relative to Opening Day 2025. Trent Grisham was their most used leadoff hitter and reprises that role after rejoining on the qualifying offer. He bats ahead of the Captain, Aaron Judge beginning the quest for his third-straight AL MVP crown. Cody Bellinger was the Yankees’ big-money signing of the winter, re-upping for five years and $162.5 million — he bats third. Ben Rice is perhaps the Yankees’ best development story since Judge, his meteoric rise earning him the right to bat cleanup. Giancarlo Stanton continues his march towards Cooperstown and stands as the X-factor of the offense if he can stay healthy and produce like he did in the second half last year. Jazz Chisholm Jr. bats sixth after becoming just the third player in franchise history with a 30-30 season. José Caballero starts at shortstop with Anthony Volpe still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery and looks to lead the AL in stolen bases for the third year in a row. Trade Deadline acquisition Ryan McMahon and fourth-year catcher Austin Wells are among the game’s best defensively at their positions but are looking to rebound from disappointing campaigns at the plate —they bat eighth and ninth.

The Giants have assembled their lineup around a core of nine-figure stars. Willy Adames and Matt Chapman have a legitimate claim as the best all-around left side of an infield in MLB. This might be the one year that Gerrit Cole — on the IL as he finishes his Tommy John rehab — is relieved not to be Opening Day starter given the presence of his personal nemesis Rafael Devers. That trio bats second-through-fourth, ahead of leadoff hitter and offseason signing three-time batting champion Luis Arraez. Jung Hoo Lee plays right and bats fifth while Heliot Ramos breaks a 19-year streak of the Giants naming a different Opening Day left fielder since Barry Bonds. Casey Schmitt gets the surprise nod at firsts ahead of the Giants’ consensus top prospect Bryce Eldridge. Patrick Bailey established himself as the best defensive catcher in baseball and bats eighth, while former Yankees and Giants offseason signing Harrison Bader rounds out the lineup and patrols center.

How to watch

Location: Oracle Park — San Francisco, CA

First pitch: 8:05 pm ET

TV broadcast: Netflix

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280

Online stream: Netflix

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