Well we now have a waiting game for the Braves’ regular season to start. We did get to see Max Fried have a good start in the first game of the regular season (which was on Netflix and was weird). The Braves’ roster is really rough compared to what we thought it would look like two months ago. The path to this team being what we wanted it to be is getting a ton of production out of the offense, the bullpen being nails, and the team getting a bunch of pitching talent back off the IL and pitching well. It’s not exceedingly likely, but the path is still there for a very good season.

Braves News

The Braves announced their Opening Day roster and there were no surprises, as late acquisition Osvaldo Bido took the last roster spot that would have been occupied by Spencer Strider, who is now on the IL.

The Braves won the Grapefruit league, which is pretty fun and has made Spring Training more enjoyable, but also has very little predictive effect on their regular season.

MLB News

The Royals DFA’d former Braves’ top prospect Drew Waters, as the Braves clearly did well to get the pick that turned into JR Ritchie for him when he still had prospect value.

The Cardinals placed outfielder Lars Nootbar on the 60-day IL, enabling them to carry top prospect JJ Wetherhold on their Opening Day roster.

Max Fried and the Yankees routed Logan Webb and the Giants in the first game of the regular season on Netflix.

Spring Training ended for the San Diego Padres on Monday with a win over the Seattle Mariners, giving them a 15-15 record over their spring schedule. While the starting rotation remains the biggest concern for the organization, no trades or signings took place after games began to address that concern.

The Friars will begin the season with a presumed five-man rotation of Nick Pivetta, Michael King, Randy Vasquez, Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez. Multiple questions remain regarding health and effectiveness for this group. During the last days of spring, JP Sears joined Triston McKenzie and Marco Gonzales in the minors to work on their command. Matt Waldron, still needing to stretch out to starter length, will begin the season on the IL.

Roster injuries and transactions for the start of the season

Joe Musgrove, Bryan Hoeing and Griffin Canning will begin the year on the 15-day IL. Musgrove has not pitched in a game since March 4 and there have been no reports of pitching at all since March 8. He continues to work back from Tommy John surgery while Canning is working back from Achilles surgery. Jhony Brito is on the 60-day IL and Yu Darvish was added to the Restricted List.

Bullpen pitchers Yuki Matsui (groin strain) and Jason Adam (quad tendon rupture surgery) are working their way back and will begin on the IL. Matsui has worked on the back fields in Arizona but needs a rehab assignment. Adam pitched in two Cactus League games, throwing 22 pitches and faced six hitters without allowing a hit. He just needs to be tested further and have increased work to assure his leg will hold up. He can be backdated to March 22 and return as early as April 6.

Utility player Sung-Mun Song (oblique strain) had two plate appearances in the final game; he walked and struck out while playing second base. He will begin on the IL to get at-bats and also play shortstop. It remains to be seen if they keep him in the minors to get repetitions at shortstop and outfield so that he can be tested at the positions they originally hoped he could cover.

It should be noted that when Song is activated, Ty France cannot be sent to the minor leagues without clearing waivers. That would be unlikely, the Padres will have a difficult situation to deal with when Song is ready. None of their bench players have minor league options.

Márquez’s effectiveness

Germán Márquez had a difficult time with command to begin his time this spring. He gradually worked into a much better spot, flashing a 97 mph fastball and a dominant knuckle curve that he leaned on for outs. He finished with 16.1 innings pitched and 23 strikeouts, tops among Padres pitchers. His 7.16 ERA reflects his early struggles but his last two starts were big improvements. He and Randy Vasquez showed improved command and velocity this spring.

The bullpen rocks

Despite Matsui and Adam starting on the IL, the Padres bullpen looks formidable again this season. Featuring Mason Miller as the closer, the rest of the staff is solid despite the lack of two of their arms. Adrian Morejón, who quietly pushed his fastball velocity to 101 mph this spring, can ably sub for Adam as the setup man. They will carry both Ron Marinaccio and Kyle Hart as swing/bridge pitchers. Jeremiah Estrada, David Morgan, Wandy Peralta and Bradgley Rodriquez will be on the team until Matsui and Adam are activated. Marinaccio no longer has options and cannot be sent to the minors without clearing waivers.

Positional depth

With the roster fixed, the Padres depth this season is significantly improved from 2025. Gavin Sheets will be the starting first baseman against right-handed pitching. He surged at the end of spring with three home runs in four games and has played solid defense. Against left-handed pitching it looks like Nick Castellanos will get looks and Miquel Andujar can also work in. They both can DH and come off the bench. Both mash lefties and should give the Friars multiple options. France is a Gold Glove-winning first baseman and can be used for defensive relief as well as a solid bat.

Jake Cronenworth will be the backup shortstop. There isn’t anyone else on the roster to relieve Xander Bogaerts. France can back up Cronenworth. It seems that getting Song into multiple roles at the minor league level would be the best approach to add more depth. Mason McCoy is in the minors in case of injury. Will Wagner has an oblique strain and has missed most of the spring and will start the season on the 10-day IL.

Bryce Johnson has won the fourth outfield job. It makes sense, as he is a solid defender with speed and base running skills. His bat broke out last year and he has no options remaining, so they lose him if they don’t keep him on the roster. Outfielder Jase Bowen impressed mightily this spring and will undoubtedly be with the team when anything happens to an outfielder this season.

There isn’t another catcher on the 40-man roster so if Luis Campusano doesn’t rise up to the challenge placed in front of him, the Padres have two options in the minors that they can place on the roster. Blake Hunt, who is currently hurt, and Rodolfo Duran are more advanced than the other catchers available. It appears Campusano will get every opportunity early in the season to prove he belongs.

Spring Breakout first team

MLB named their Spring Breakout First Team players after all games were completed. Padres prospect Ethan Salas was named at catcher and outfielder Kale Fountain was honored as well. Both hit big homers in the Padres’ losing effort, and Salas put on a show in making his return to the field. Fountain is making the switch from infield to outfield now that he has completed the rehab from Tommy John surgery. Both will be watched for breakouts in their careers during this season.

Minor signs

The Padres signed RHP Jose Leclerq to a minor league contract. He missed all of 2025 due to a lat strain. The 32-year-old had late inning stuff in his past and will start his attempt to return to form in the minors.

RHP Julio Dilone was also signed to a minor league contract. The 25-year-old Dominican will return to the minor leagues after spending last season in the Atlantic League. He was previously in the Seattle Mariners and Miami Marlins organizations but not above Single-A.

Opening Day is in the books and it couldn’t have gone much better for the Yankees. It was a bit of a throwback game as the Yankees scored seven runs without the ball leaving the yard, the hitters aggressive early in counts to collect ten base hits. Any time you can score seven runs when Aaron Judge strikes out four times, you know you’ve got a strong supporting cast around the Captain. Max Fried turned in a faultless 6.1 scoreless innings as the Yankees kicked off their season with a 7-0 win over the Giants.

First pitch was delayed by 20 minutes with all the on-field festivities, and the Yankees hitters were also slow coming out of the gate, Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge striking out swinging and Cody Bellinger popping out to left. Max Fried got himself into a spot of trouble in the bottom-half, issuing a leadoff four-pitch walk to noted non-walker Luis Arraez. Matt Chapman then just beat out the throw to first to avoid the double play on his groundball, and advanced to third on a Rafael Devers shallow fly ball to center that Trent Grisham lost in the sun and got a late jump — the bloop carrying a 95-percent catch probability according to Statcast. However, Fried buckled down, collecting his first strikeout of the year by blowing a 95 mph cutter by Willy Adames and getting Jung Hoo Lee to ground out.

After falling behind early in the count to Webb’s aggression in the zone with sinkers and changeups, the whole Yankees lineup made the necessary adjustment in the second. They began hunting first pitches that left Webb’s hand aimed at the glove-side edge of the plate, relying on the arm-side movement to carry it into the path of their bats. Giancarlo Stanton collected the first hit of the Yankees’ season with a one-out line drive single up the middle, followed swiftly by a Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit-by-pitch on a first-pitch sinker. With runners on first and second, José Caballero lined a 1-1 hanging sweeper down the line to left, plating Stanton for the first run of the campaign and advancing Jazz to third. Ryan McMahon drove both runners home on a ground ball single that just evaded Luis Arraez’s outstretched glove, and in just eight pitches the Yankees had a 3-0 lead. Austin Wells jumped on a first pitch changeup down the middle for a line drive single to center, an approach which also worked for Grisham as he clobbered a fly ball into triples alley in right-center to plate McMahon and Wells — the Yankees’ first Opening Day triple since Johnny Damon in 2009. One of the most consistent starters in baseball, this was the first time Webb has given up five runs in an inning since 2023.

Maybe it was just Opening Day first inning adrenaline that caused Fried to spray a bunch of his opening cutters high and glove-side, because he found his groove in the second. He struck out three in the frame sandwiched around a Casey Schmitt HBP, all three strikeouts coming on the fastball. There wasn’t as much swing-and-miss in the third facing the top of the order for a second time, but he nonetheless retired them in order inducing a pair of ground outs. The final baserunner he allowed was a two-out single from Heliot Ramos in the fourth.

The Yankees put a pair on in the fourth as McMahon drew a one-out walk and Wells singled to right, but a Grisham fly out and Judge strikeout stranded them in place. However, the traffic they created in the fifth did bear fruit. Cody Bellinger, Ben Rice, and Giancarlo Stanton opened the frame with three straight singles, Stanton’s driving Bellinger home as the game’s sixth run. Jazz then appeared to ground into a potential double play, but a throwing error from Willy Adames that hit Jazz and bounced away from the first baseman allowed Rice to score all the way from second.

Webb would finish the inning, but that was it for the 2023 NL Cy Young runner-up. New Giants manger Tony Vitello left his ace in to eat it, which isn’t entirely indefensible considering he found a bit of effectiveness in the third and fourth and has to build up his pitch count. However, the seven runs on nine hits was the most runs he has given up in a start since July 10, 2024.

Keaton Winn was the first reliever out of the Giants’ bullpen, and he stuck a feather in his cap by striking out Judge. The lone blemish on an otherwise faultless night, Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. It’s the first time a reigning MVP has worn the golden sombrero on Opening Day and Judge’s first four-strikeout game since September 28, 2024. In a way, though, the captain having a quiet night is a gift in disguise as it reinforces that the Yankees offense is still capable of scoring a lot of runs even when their leader doesn’t hit on that particular day.

Fried continued to cruise in the middle innings, which came as a double blessing considering commissioner Rob Manfred joined the broadcast booth in the fifth. Fried worked a quick 1-2-3 inning to spare us from listening to too much of his conceited drivel. That wasn’t the only notable booth guest interaction, Barry Bonds joining in the sixth to share an alleged story of George Steinbrenner sabotaging a deal to sign the all-time home run king in 1993.

The contact against Fried started to get a little louder in the sixth despite him working a 1-2-3 frame. That coupled with him still not being fully built up to a complete workload likely explained Boone removing his starter at just 86 pitches with one out into the seventh. It’s hard to ask for much more from your Opening Day starter, Fried tossing 6.1 scoreless innings allowing just two hits and a walk to go with four strikeouts, the southpaw retiring 18 of the final 20 batters he faced.

The Yankees’ final chance to pad their lead came in the seventh, Rice drawing a leadoff walk and advancing to second on a Jazz single off former Yankee JT Brubaker, but the righty got Caballero to bounce into the inning-ending double play. Jake Bird was the first Yankees reliever out of the ‘pen and he collected the final two outs of the seventh. Brent Headrick worked around an Arraez single and Chapman walk with two outs to turn in a scoreless eighth. Camilo Doval nullified a Caballero fielding error to open the ninth by retiring the final three batters to end the game, 7-0.

The Yankees have the day off tomorrow before getting back to action on Friday. Cam Schlittler earns the start coming off his electric rookie cameo, and faces 2021 AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray, who earned the second All-Star nod of his career last season. First pitch is scheduled for 4:35 pm ET with the broadcast moving over to YES.

Box Score

There have been times over the past three decades when Major League Baseball has come off perhaps a little too desperate.

Crises both self-inflicted (the canceling of the 1994 World Series) and external (Big Football consuming the attention economy, the collapse of linear television) can make the erstwhile national pastime scramble to claw back some of that cultural currency.

And it seemed like more of the same when MLB agreed to sell a pair of prime real estate properties – a standalone Opening Night game and the much-loved Home Run Derby – to Netflix. Hey, gotta meet the viewers where they are and besides, the $50 million annually for three years doesn’t hurt.

Yet when the time finally came for this standalone opener on a nascent sports broadcaster to get beamed to some 300 million global subscribers, it wasn’t the league that came off desperate to leverage the window.

It was Netflix.

You’d think a global brand whose name is synonymous with streaming like Coke and Xerox are for their products wouldn’t feel the need to force-feed the viewer with noxious, wall-to-wall promotions of their #content.

Silly us, failing to realize Netflix was actually bigger than the game.

From Daniel Dae Kim’s game intro (catch him in "Avatar: The Last Airbender") to pro wrestler John Cena’s strange assignment to explain the automatic ball-strike system (hey, be sure to watch "Little Brother," where he stars alongside Eric André, and Michelle Monaghan) to Bert Kreischer’s floating around in a kayak and his pregame screaming as on-field MC, the viewer was never allowed to breathe.

"Free Bert"? No, set us free.

By the time they found Yahya Abdul-Mateen II conveniently seated behind home plate (hey, "Man on Fire" drops April 26!), one thing was clear.

Fox Sports, known for its relentless promotion by placing "Party of Five" stars and Zooey Deschanel in the stands – or singing the national anthem – for World Series games, is off the hook.

The game itself? It was fine enough, though it couldn’t begin until WWE on Netflix superstar Jey Uso screamed “Play Ball!” in front of the sellout crowd.