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My dad used to always tell me that you only get one chance to make a good first impression. He’s right, though thankfully in baseball, the playoff teams aren’t chosen based on their first impressions.

For their first series of the season — a putrid, feckless, and deeply uncompetitive sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees — the San Francisco Giants made a very obvious impression.

If you were to prorate that series to a full season, you would have a team with a blatant identity:

1. Basically no offense, but…
2. Intermittent flickers of offense that are met by emphatic rally killers
3. Pitching that’s pretty good, but can’t resist giving up the big hits in the crucial moments
4. The occasional late-game rally that comes up frustratingly short

The Giants have been gifted 159 games to adjust and restore their identity so that it doesn’t align with the first impression, and I like their chances, because my one bold prediction for the 2026 season is that the Giants won’t be the hands-down worst team in the history of professional baseball.

San Francisco hit the road on Monday, and took their first step towards restoring the narrative, with a move both so bold and so simple that only a new coach who hasn’t yet been hardened by the realities of Major League Baseball could think of it: the reverse Uno card. Tony Vitello witnessed the script that had led to an 0-3 start and thought, hey what if instead of doing that, we have the other team do it?

It worked. And by a margin of 3-2 over the San Diego Padres, the Giants have their first win of the season — and Vitello his first victory as an MLB manager.

While it was remarkable just how good of an impression of the Giants the Padres did, the Giants first warned you that they might reprise the role for a fourth time. Facing old frenemy Walker Buehler, the Giants had a remarkably Giantsy first inning. Vitello opted for the unconventional decision to move Willy Adames, the coldest hitter on the team, into the leadoff spot to jump start him, and Adames responded with a single to open the game. Three pitches later, Rafael Devers erased that single with a double play, and Buehler would later end the inning with just 10 pitches thrown.

It doesn’t get more Giant. Except apparently it does. The Padres are what “getting more Giant” looks like.

San Diego’s offense was useless for much of the game, which is, yes, a great bit to talk about, but mostly a testament to how awesome Landen Roupp was in his season debut. Roupp has spoken openly about his desire to go pitch for pitch with Logan Webb, and Monday’s start was one hell of an audition for the role of co-ace.

He set down the side in order in the first inning, striking out Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado. He cruised through the second, giving up a single but striking out Gavin Sheets and Ramón Laureano. He needed just seven pitches and one magnificent bit of leather wizardry from Adames to defeat the third.

Willy Adames flashes the leather 🫨 pic.twitter.com/7FjmMsh7S8

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) March 31, 2026

It was the fourth inning where the Padres slowly started to shift from their first bullet point of the Giants identity to the second one. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the inning with a walk, putting a fearsome runner on the basepaths ahead of the heart of San Diego’s lineup. Machado got ahead in the count 2-1, but Roupp fired back, inducing a groundout, which moved Tatis to second. With Tatis in scoring position and just one out, Roupp faced San Diego’s wunderkind, Jackson Merrill, and got him to ground out as well, with Tatis moving to third. One more groundout — this time Xander Bogaerts — and Roupp was out of the inning.

Yep, that’s a dandy Webb impression.

The fifth was another smooth inning for Roupp, who issued a one-out walk but struck out a pair of batters to cruise through the inning. But the sixth is where the Padres really began to embody the Giants.

After striking out Cronenworth to open the frame, Roupp ceded a one-out single to Tatis. The Padres were desperately trying to get back in the game — they trailed 3-0 — and who better to help them achieve it but Machado, one of the great Giant Killers of this era?

With his night nearing an end, Roupp dug deep in a 1-1 count, and tossed a confounding curveball that darted away from the right-handed Machado, dipping below the zone and on the outside edge. Machado simply couldn’t resist, and swung with his entire body off-balance, chopping the ball right back to Roupp.

The 1-4-3 double play isn’t the easiest thing in baseball, especially in the first week of the season. But with the Padres playing like the Giants and, critically, the Giants not playing like the Giants, there was only one possible outcome: Roupp plucked the ball cleanly, spun balletically, and fired a fastball to Luis Arráez, who gracefully passed the ball onto Casey Schmitt, all while Machado could hardly be bothered to release the clutch, let alone shift out of first gear.

Roupp yelled with excitement and a touch of something else. The Padres looked uninterested, and ready to go home. The contrast between the teams was stark.

Which brings us to the other side of the ball. The Giants only scored three runs, but they did so in a way that they grew accustomed to watching the Yankees do on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

It started with the thing that Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton did to them: a singular swing of the bat that in and of itself provides enough offense to feel like a finishing blow to a team that can’t score. For the Giants, it came in the third inning off of Buehler. After mild-mannered first and second innings, the Giants were ready for action in the third thanks to their leadoff hitter in the inning, Harrison Bader.

One could make the case that Bader will be the litmus test for the Giants offense. If he hits like he did a year ago, when he was on the Minnesota Twins and the Philadelphia Phillies, he’ll help anchor the heart of the lineup. If he hits like he did in the three prior years, he’ll be the Patrick Bailey of the outfield grass: a player who is valuable, but would be even more valuable if you could find a way to skip his turn in the batting order. It’s not hard to see a strong season from Bader representing everyone on offense clicking, or a poor season signifying disappointment across the board.

Four games is too early to tell. It’s too early to judge the first three games, in which Bader looked like he’d never swung a bat before in his life, while his teammates followed his lead. And it’s too early to judge after a fourth game, when the Giants finally put runs (plural!) on the board, after being jumpstarted by a 1-2 annihilation of a helpless Buehler curve that caught far too much strike zone.

Gorgeous. The swing of the bat, yes, but also the hair.

But while Bader’s homer — the first of the year for the Giants — was the most impactful swing of the day, it didn’t feel like the most meaningful. Instead, a pair of swings jockeyed for that distinction, and they both occurred just one inning later, in the fourth.

With one out, Matt Chapman, who is in quite a slump to start the season, ripped a single at 107.4 mph, the hardest-hit ball of the day for the Giants. That brought up Jung Hoo Lee, who is in quite a slump to start the season, and he drew a six-pitch walk, moving Chapman into scoring position.

But Bader popped up for a second out, and suddenly it felt like the Giants were back to their rally-killing ways.

If Chapman and Lee have been slumping to start the season, it’s nothing compared to the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, Bailey and Schmitt. But sometimes it’s those players who provide just what the team needs.

And they did exactly that. With two on and two out, Bailey took a 1-0 curve off the plate outside, and did the sensible thing with it: he poked it the other way, into left field, notching his first hit of the season, and scoring Chapman.

Up came Schmitt, who worked the count to 2-1, and then ripped a high fastball through a hole in the infield, notching his first hit of the season (he would add a double later in the game), and scoring Lee.

Those were the sorts of hits the Yankees kept piling up against increasingly-frustrated Giants pitchers. It was delightful seeing the Giants turn the car around and send it scooting off in the opposite direction.

But while the Giants eschewed their 2026 first impressions in this game, they couldn’t completely shake off the identity that they’ve spent the last few decades perfectly curating. There had to be some ninth-inning torture.

And so, after Matt Gage cleanly handled the seventh inning, and Keaton Winn thoroughly dominated in the eighth, we got our first look at Ryan Walker as the 2026 closer.

It started off very grim, with the control issues that plagued him this time last year. Facing the top of the order, Walker couldn’t find the strike zone against Cronenworth, issuing a leadoff walk on just four pitches.

But Walker bit down on his mouthguard. With some help from Tatis seemingly forgetting that he could challenge pitches, he struck out San Diego’s superstar, then got Machado to ground out. Two sliders sandwiched around a fastball later, and he was up on Merrill 1-2, with the Giants a strike away from winning the game.

Merrill fought back, fouling off a pitch, and then spitting on two pitches off the corners to load the count. Finally, on a get-it-in 3-2 slider, Merrill uncorked an obscene amount of power, lifting a ball comfortably over the wall, and pulling the Padres within a run.

But as I mentioned, those occasional late-game rallies are designed to fall short, as they did for the Giants on Saturday. And so, after a brief meeting with his teammates, Walker settled in and got Bogaerts to ground out, ending the game, and giving the Giants their first win since their last win, which was, you know … last year.

The win is always the most important thing, but there were other thing to delight in. Roupp really was fantastic, giving up just two singles and two walks in his six shutout innings, while finishing with seven strikeouts. He only needed 88 pitches to get through those half-dozen innings, and likely would have stayed in for the seventh if we were a few weeks into the season.

With the Giants holding a lead for the first time this season, we got to see how Vitello would deploy the bullpen in a leverage situation. It seemed very likely that Walker would be the closer, but the setup man remained a mystery.

Enter Winn. Despite his subpar spring results, the Giants seem to have woken up to the idea that a 99-mph fastball paired with a wipeout splitter is a deeply valuable thing to have, and it was a treat seeing Winn get the opportunity to take down the eighth in a tight game.

So what did he do? He struck out Laureano on four pitches, getting him to chase a pitch that skirted the dirt for strike three. He struck out Nick Castellanos, who helplessly swung through two splitters, and then gave up and watched the third pitch of the at-bat find Bailey’s glove for a K. And he struck out former Giant Bryce Johnson, who put up a fight but never looked comfortable.

Three batters. Three strikeouts. Five swings-and-misses. Not even a single foul ball.

Pure filth from Winn. Now we wait and see if he’s the full-time setup man, or if it’s a fluid situation. It wouldn’t be surprising if Vitello turns to Erik Miller for the eighth inning when left-handers are due up. But I’d sure love to see Winn keep this role, unless he steals Walker’s at some point.

And with that, the Giants have a win, and Vitello has an everything shower … and not the enjoyable kind.

Celebrating Tony Vitello’s first win as a Major League skipper 👏 pic.twitter.com/uRVwYeLLrZ

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) March 31, 2026

Now it finally feels like the season is underway. Beating the Padres will do that to you.

Sometimes normalcy feels great.

FINAL: Giants 3, Padres 2

No scorigami. This score has happened 12,952 times in MLB history, most recently earlier today.

— MLB Scorigami (@MLBgami) March 31, 2026

Even though the Mariners were winning most of the game, it still felt like they were going to have to win on a comeback, which they eventually did.

The Yankees were dominating the ABS challenge system, and the Mariners had a few defensive miscues, driving all the focus to the Yankees’ half-innings. Meanwhile, despite putting up a run in the second inning, the Mariners bats had mostly gone down quickly and quietly. So as we reached the midpoint, this was one of those games where it was easy to forget that the Mariners were winning.

But winning they were because that second-inning run was enough to hold the lead throughout Luis Castillo’s six innings of work. La Piedra came out firing for his first start of the season, hitting 96.5 mph with his fastball, something he only topped four times before May last year. He left one a little too close to middle-middle against Aaron Judge for my comfort, but he got away with it and eventually jammed him on a sinker running all the way in on his hands. You might chalk the velo spike up to first-game adrenaline, but he held it for most of his outing. With his fastball unhittable, why would he go to anything else? Well, because his slider was as about as sharp as it gets. So the first time through the order, he only threw one pitch that was anything but a four-seamer or slider—the sinker that finished off Judge.

Of course, Yankees were still reaching base. Twice, a can of corn dropped in shallow left: the first time due to an early-season miscommunication, and the second time because both Donovan and Rivas lost the ball in the lights. And for as well as Castillo was pitching, the Yankees were all over Mike Estabrook’s mistakes behind the plate, successfully challenging five calls in the fourth inning alone.

But overall, Castillo was too sharp to be beat. He surrendered just two “hits”: one on the lost-in-the-lights pop-up and the other a weakly hit groundball that Castillo himself couldn’t quite handle. But his seven strikeouts were all well earned. The most visually pleasing was when Cody Bellinger couldn’t come within a foot of either a backfoot slider or a fastball up out of the zone. But the most notable was Castillo’s final punchout of the night, the 1,500th of his career.

It didn’t have to be a strikeout. It started off on one of his worst pitches of the game—a slider left right over the heart of the plate. But just like he did in his first-inning face-off with Judge, Castillo got away with it. “[Judge] looked at me and smiled,” Castillo said after the game. He says the two of them have admired each other from a distance, leading to something like a friendship from afar. “But I think if I threw that pitch again, there’s no way he’s not going to swing, there’s no way I get to strikeout 1,500.”

Fortunately, he proceeded to throw three better sliders, the final one of which might have hit Judge if he hadn’t swung at it. Castillo laughed about that final pitch with his teammates in the dugout watching on the iPad afterwards. “I was looking at the movement of the pitch. It was so weird. It was moving like, I don’t know, like a splitter-slash-changeup? Like I don’t think I’ve ever thrown a pitch like that in my life. It’s nothing like the slider I throw.” For being both weird and contributing to a milestone, that pitch also earns Luis Castillo tonight’s Sun Hat Award, an honor I give out in my recaps to the player who made a notable individual contribution to the game.

That completes the Mariners’ first turn through the rotation for 2026, in which the five starters put up a combined 29.1 innings with 38 strikeouts to six walks, 13 hits, and six runs. After a down year last year, the early returns from the rotation suggest it will once again be one of Seattle’s strengths.

Castillo left with the lead thanks to a second-inning sequence in which Randy Arozarena led off with a single, Mitch Garver moved him to second by turning an 0-2 count into a 10-pitch walk, and Cole Young batted him in with his first of three hits on the night. But as soon as Castillo departed, the Yankees were able to tie it at 1-1 because while Jose Ferrer got the three ground balls you hope for, he couldn’t turn them into outs.

But while the Mariners left two runners on in each of the fifth and seventh, the fact that they were getting baserunners and that Gabe Speier and Matt Brash had dominant outings gave you the sense that the Mariners bats would eventually pull this one out. Letting Gabe Speier pitch to Aaron Judge was an inspired choice, speaking to the well-founded confidence the team has in him to face righties. Technically, Judge won the battle with a hit, but I’m still giving Speier the victory since it was on a 79-mph ground ball. Brash finished his inning with the nastiest slider of the season (so far) to get revenge on Amed Rosario for his earlier game-tying RBI.

Still, despite the rising feeling that a walk-off was imminent, when Leo Rivas and Brendan Donovan reached the corners to open the ninth, it brought up the ice-cold heart of the Mariners order, and suddenly it wasn’t such a foregone conclusion that the Mariners would win.

For his part, Cal Raleigh is dismissive of the cold start. “A lot of people across the league are fighting the same thing. Guys are trying to find their timing. And it’s more under a microscope, more so now than it is in the middle of a season, just because it’s the start of the season, everybody’s excited, they can keep up with certain numbers.”

He says he feels fine in the box. And tonight he was able to execute, sending a decent Paul Blackburn cutter down the right field line for the Mariners’ first walk-off win of the year. “It’ll be OK,” he said. “I think everybody’s going to be just fine.”

The San Francisco Giants ended their winless streak to start the 2026 season, collecting their first win in the Tony Vitello era after defeating the San Diego Padres, 3-2, on March 30.

Under Vitello — joined the Giants as manager in October 2025 — San Francisco had dropped all three of its games in the season-opening series against the New York Yankees. The Giants went on the road to face the Padres, their NL West divisional rivals, where they got their first victory of the season.

Harrison Bader opened the scoring in the third inning with a 408-foot bomb over left field. The Giants added a couple of runs in the fourth inning by methodically filling the bases, something they hardly did in their series against the Yankees.

San Francisco went up 3-0 in the fourth inning. Patrick Bailey singled to left, which allowed Matt Chapman to cross home plate, as Jung Hoo Lee went to second. Another run shortly followed after Casey Schmitt hit an RBI single to left field that allowed Lee to score.

"The first one's huge," Bader told NBC Sports Bay Area. "Just a matter of going out there and, you know, continuing to process, you know, throwing strikes, taking care of the baseball, getting your swing off as a hitter. You do that, I think good thing happens in the lineup. It felt good to kind of get that off out of the way. Just a good team win."

San Diego finally got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the ninth inning, when Jackson Merrill hit a two-run home run to right field that scored Jake Cronenworth. However, the Giants got the next batter, Xander Bogaerts, to ground out to shortstop to end the game.

Vitello was doused in beer to celebrate the first major-league win of his career.

"Yeah, it's hard to comprehend, because I got the same disease as every other coach. You're kind of you want the proper guys to get their props. That got it done tonight, which really it was a lot of guys, especially if you include defense," Vitello told reporters after the game.

He added: "Also look ahead in the next game, is an opportunity to win a series down here and continue things in the right direction. So probably soak in getting back to the hotel. But yeah, pretty special looking around the room, whether it's in the office, in the dugout or in the lock, some of these guys have been slower to come out of their shell with me, but it's little moments like that, or breaking camp or opening day where I think, you know, the bond grows a little bit, which, you know, at the end of the day, we want to be a strong unit right now."

Vitello believes that the team will continue grow as a unit as the season wears on. The Giants face the Padres again on March 31 at Petco Park, with first pitch scheduled for 9:40 p.m. ET.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Giants get first win of Tony Vitello era vs. San Diego Padres

The Yankees’ bullpen had been flawless up until the ninth inning of Monday’s ballgame. 

With the group a bit shorthanded on the night, Aaron Boone decided to keep the ball in the hands of Paul Blackburn in a tie ballgame heading into the bottom of the ninth. 

Blackburn had just put together a scoreless eighth making his first appearance of the season, but the Mariners quickly created some traffic against him leading off the final frame. 

Boone was forced to make another decision after a pair of singles put the winning run 90 feet away with just one out. 

The skipper decided to have Blackburn pitch to switch-hitting AL MVP runner-up Cal Raleigh rather than walking him to load the bases for the righty Julio Rodriguez. 

Rodriguez was 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts on the night, and Raleigh had struck out in his lone at-bat off the bench, as both fight through some early season struggles. 

Still, the decision came back to cost the Yanks as the slumping backstop laced a walk-off single on the fourth pitch he saw to give the Mariners the series opener. 

Asked about it postgame, Boone said via YES Network that he never considered issuing the intentional walk. 

“Then you’re just bringing up no margin for error and a walk in play,” he said. “You got both guys that are struggling out of the gates, and Julio would be almost impossible to double-up so we’d have to bring the infield in in that situation -- we view [Blackburn] as very neutral, and even reverse, so no, there’s was no thought to that.”

In the end, the Yankees' three-game winning streak and the bullpen's 14+ inning scoreless streak were snapped.

Things finally came full circle after eight years and seven months away from home. Justin Verlander returned to the mound in regular season action as a Detroit Tiger on Monday night in Arizona. Were you nervous? I’ve rarely had the mix of excitement and nerves I felt going into this one except in September and October.

Despite making peace with the reality that Verlander is just a regular rotation arm at this point, it’s hard to see him on the mound and not just expect greatness, but there was no greatness in this one as Verlander’s command was pretty lousy all night. A wild, strange contest ultimately did not go the Tigers way. The Diamondbacks built a big lead, nearly fumbled the bag, but then held on to win their first game of the season 9-6. The Tigers fall to 2-2 on the young season.

Veteran right-hander Mike Soroka was on the mound for the Snakes. He blew Kerry Carpenter away with a 95 mph heater right down the gut to open the game, but Gleyber Torres waited him out to draw a walk. Colt Keith got into a full count, slashing a near double just foul in the left field corner, but Soroka dotted the bottom edge with a fastball and froze him. Riley Greene flared a single to right as the left-handers seemed to be looking to go opposite field. That brought up Spencer Torkelson, who bounced a ball to Nolan Arenado, and the veteran third baseman beat Torres to third base to end the top half.

Over 21 years since his major league debut with the Tigers, Justin Verlander then took the mound against a tough 1-2-3 in the D-Backs lineup. Ketel Marte had no respect for the moment, smoking a 1-1 curveball for a single back through the box. Against Corbin Carroll, Verlander worked into a 2-2 count, shook Dillon Dingler off, and bounced another slider hunting chase. The ball got away from Dingler and Marte took second, and Carroll roasted a heater to the warning track in right center field for an RBI triple. 1-0 Diamondbacks.

Verlander tried to junkball Perdomo, and it didn’t work as the shortstop took a breaking ball down in a full count to walk. Gabriel Moreno bounced out to Javy Báez at shortstop, but it was weakly hit and they couldn’t turn it over. So, Carroll scored, and it was now 2-0 D-Backs with one out as Arenado stepped into the box.

Arenado lined a 1-2 fastball right to Báez for the second out, but the shortstop uncorked a wild snap throw to first as Perdomo was leaning, and that was a two base throwing error. Fortunately it didn’t matter as Alek Thomas flew out to right to end the inning.

Not an ideal start for the Tigers in this one.

McGonigle led off the second by smoking a line drive to right at 103.4 mph, but the speedy Carroll ran it down. Dingler chased a bunch of breaking balls to strike out swinging. Parker Meadows got a changeup down and away, lining it down the left field line for a double, and that brought Báez to the dish. The shortstop worked a full count, but presumably expecting them to fish away with a breaking ball, was instead locked up by a sinker middle-in. The only bright spot was that Soroka was already 40 pitches deep.

When I think of a long-time JV killer, one of the first names that comes to mind is long-time Cleveland slugger Carlos Santana. We prefer the guitarist, but it was Santana digging in against Verlander to open the bottom of the second. An 0-2 slider was hung, but Santana lined it to Carpenter in right field. Another hanging slider was roped to right for a single by Ildemaro Vargas. A first pitch curveball to Jordan Lawler was ripped to left for a single. Quite a bit of hard contact already, and now we were back to Marte at the top of the order.

Marte lifted a dangerous pop-up into shallow left-center and Báez called off Greene and made a pretty sweet basket catch while running well out into the outfield for the second out. In a 1-1 count, yet another hanging slider was right into Carroll’s bat path and got launched for a three-run shot. 5-0 Diamondbacks.

This was not what we were looking for. The stuff looks just fine, but the slider was all over the place in the early going. The hard contact continued as Perdomo got a first pitch heater down the pipe and fortunately lined it to Meadows to end the inning.

So far the command was pretty poor from JV.

Carpenter opened the third with a line drive single to right field. Torres drove one out to the warning track in dead center but it died in Thomas’ glove for the first out. Keith did better, hammering one further to center field. It kicked off the wall just shy of the yellow line high up the wall for a double. Carpenter thought it was out and perhaps wasn’t on his horse, stopping at third, and Keith had to scramble back to second base. Tough medicine on a ball that probably carried 415 feet or more.

Greene worked a 3-2 count and then took a front hip fastball that caught the inside edge to strike out. Tork watched a pair of breaking balls away to get to 2-0, then took a sinker on the inner edge for a strike. The next sinker was right down the pipe but he fouled it off and then chased a slurve just off the plate away to strike out. TTBDNS time. Make that five baserunners stranded in three innings.

Verlander’s command was just really spotty throughout his season debut. He wasn’t getting ahead enough, and made some mistakes in hitters’ counts. Curiously, we saw no high fourseamers at all really through the first three innings, but he did settle down for a scoreless frame.

He tugged three straight fastballs to Moreno before working back to a full count. Moreno drilled a 95 mph heater at the bottom of the zone down the right field line for a double. Verlander got ahead of Arenado 0-2, then missed down with a changeup. A fastball down was lifted out to Greene near the warning track in left for the first out. Thomas was locked up by a curveball and flailed at it for Verlander’s first strikeout. He and Santana locked up in a lengthy battle as his pitch count reached 65 on the night, and eventually popped him up to McGonigle for the final out.

The bats still weren’t doing anything in the fourth. McGonigle grounded out, Dingler punched out on a slurve down and away, and Meadows flew out to center field after starting ahead 3-0.

Verlander came back out and quickly collected two outs on very routine contact. Marte stepped in with two outs, and Verlander was closing in on 80 pitches. After getting ahead, he couldn’t get the talented outfielder to chase, and Marte worked a walk. That was all for Verlander’s return start to the Tigers.

Enmanuel de Jesus took over against the tough series of lefties atop the order. Dillon Dingler had a successful challenge as de Jesus dotted the outer corner with fastballs, but in a 2-2 count de Jesus yanked a fastball and it got away from Dingler as Marte took second, but it didn’t matter as Carroll chased a cutter away and struck out. Onto the fifth.

Soroka’s day was about to end as well, but he had enough left in the tank to punch out Báez, Carpenter, and Torres on 9 pitches. The immaculate inning did not speak well for the Tigers chances of fighting back in this one.

De Jesus got Perdomo to start the bottom of the fifth, bur Moreno singled to left. Arenado came up with a nice piece of 1-2 hitting, punching a fastball through the open right side of the infield. Thomas tried to bunt first pitch but tapped it foul, and then the left-handed outfielder smoked a cutter the opposite way off the wall to make it 6-0. De Jesus was following Verlander’s example and missing way too often, and he walked Santana to load the bases. He bounced back to pop up Vargas, but after getting ahead of Lawlar, de Jesus tried high sinkers twice and then missed low with a changeup to walk in a run. 7-0 Diamondbacks. Le sigh.

Marte got tied up by de Jesus’ first two pitches and eventually grounded one to Báez at shortstop. It was a bouncer and Marte runs well, so Báez fired quickly to second to get Lawlar. He was called out, but the Diamondbacks rightly challenged, and Lawlar was safe. 8-0 Diamondbacks. The late night suffering will continue until morale improves.

That was all for de Jesus’ return to the major leagues. After painting edges all spring, his command wasn’t sharp here either, and Hinch had to go get him as well. Brant Hurter came on to retire Carroll on a bliner out to Greene to end the inning.

Right-hander Kevin Ginkel took over in the top of the seventh. He froze Keith and got a soft tapper from Greene to start the inning. An end of the bat liner to center field from Torkelson was caught on a nice sliding catch by Thomas in the seventh. The Tigers now had 11 strikeouts to one walk, and the zone was not under control.

Hurter tossed a 1-2-3 bottom half of the sixth. Moreno flew out to the warning track in left but Greene was camped under it. Arenado grounded out to McGonigle to send us to the eighth.

So far, this had been classic bad at-bat theater by the Tigers. They were largely trying to be patient, only to let pitchers back into counts taking fastballs for strikes when ahead, and then chasing once there were two strikes. Not what we are looking for.

Right-hander Joe Ross, brother of Tyson, handled the seventh for the Snakes. He walked McGonigle to start things off. Dingler ambushed a first pitch slider and hammered a one hopper off the center field wall for a double to get the Tigers on the board. 8-1 Snakes.

Parker Meadows grounded out to second, moving Dingler to third, and Báez strafed a line drive single to right field to plate the Tigers’ second run. Small victories against arguably the D-Backs worst reliever. Carpenter chased a splitter away and struck out yet again, but Torres drilled a single to center field to keep the inning alive. Colt Keith stepped into the box, and Diamondbacks called a mound meeting to discuss.

It didn’t help them. Ross fell behind 2-1, and Keith smoked an opposite field drive into the left field corner to plate both runs. 8-4 Diamondbacks, and now things were getting interesting. They got more interesting when Riley Greene dumped a single to center field. Keith raced around to make it 8-5, and that was it for Joe Ross.

Sidearmer Ryan Thompson came on and threw three straight balls, balked Greene to third, and then gave up an RBI double to Torkelson. Hmm….8-6 Tigers. McGonigle back up as the 10th batter of the inning. Thompson fell behind 2-0, and the D-Backs were in danger. Probably the right thing to do was just to walk McGonigle, and Thompson agreed, doing so on four straight pitches. And now it was Dillon Dingler’s turn. Thompson missed four more times in a row, yes that’s eight straight, and Dingler walked as well. Yeesh.

That was it for Thompson, and at this point Jason Benetti, who had pointed out all game long that the Diamondbacks bullpen was terrible last year and not particularly upgraded this offseason, was grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. Still, the Tigers were still well short of a comeback.

Torey Lovullo came to the mound once again, looking fully fed up with the situation, and called on Juan Morillo instead. A disgusted home crowd let out a roar when Morillo floated in a first pitch strike, but he too fell behind 2-1, then 3-1. However, Meadows got a 99 mph fourseamer down in the zone, and grounded out to second to at least temporarily restore sanity to the game. 8-6 Diamondbacks.

Hurter nearly hit Alek Thomas with a sinker to start the bottom half, but instead the center fielder swung and grounded out to Báez. Carlos Santana also grounded out quickly to Torres. Unfortunately, a 1-0 sinker to Vargas was up a bit and he smashed it out to left center field for a solo shot to make it a 9-6 game. Lawlar ripped a hot grounder past McGonigle into left, and that was it for Hurter as Kyle Finnegan entered the contest.

Finnegan dotted 97 on the inner edge to start Marte off, and Dingler had to challenge, making that two successful challenges for the Tigers catcher. Finnegan heard Lawlar break for second, turned and fired high to Torkelson. The ball got away and Lawlar ended up on third, but Marte lifted a shallow fly ball to left to end the inning.

Lovullo turned to Taylor Clarke to open the eighth. Báez flew out to left off the end of the bat to start things off. Carpenter struck out again, and then Torres flew out to center field.

Tyler Holton took over in the bottom of the eighth with tough lefties to face, and Holton quickly walked Corbin Carroll on four straight pitches. The speedy Carroll is not the guy to put on base to leadoff an inning. Holton did erase him by getting Perdomo to ground to Báez, who forced Carroll at second. Tyler Holton threw a 94 mph fastball in that at-bat which is odd, but he also was missing a ton, which was even odder. Holton walked Moreno on four straight pitches as well, and Nolan Arenado stepped in with a chance to put this game to bed for good. Instead, he popped out to Torkelson in foul territory. Holton punched out Thomas, and it was last call for the Tigers’ offense.

Keith opened the inning with another well struck ball off of Paul Sewald, but flew out to Lawlar in left. Greene flew out just shy of the warning track in center, and it was up to Torkelson who struck out.

Overall, poor showings from Verlander and de Jesus. Dingler, Greene, and particularly Keith had good nights at the plate, but not enough to overcome a big deficit. The Tigers are 2-2, and now Casey Mize will make his season debut on Tuesday night against RHP Brandon Pfaadt at 9:40 p.m. ET.