You’ve waited and waited and it finally arrived. No I’m not talking about your clothes that you ordered online, I’m talking about Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Monday, April 1st marked the start to another marathon that is the baseball season. Some will say, but what about the first game on Sunday night doesn’t that count? Umm no, no it does not. This years Opening Day brought about a couple of firsts and also brought you more of what you’re used to. For the first time in the history of New York’s baseball franchises, the Yankees and the Mets opened their season at home at the same time. I feel bad for the people stuck in that post game traffic. Now you might need to read this next part twice, but the Yankees lost and the Mets won. The Mets looked good with Jonathon Niese on the hill, and a grand slam by Collin Cowgill didn’t hurt either. They won their game 11-2 over the San Diego Padres. The Yankees on the other hand did not look as good. We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to bring you an important message: Do Not, I repeat Do Not overreact to the first game of the year!! This game meant absolutely nothing as to how the baseball season is going to pan out. MLB’s regular season is 162 games that span from April through 2027. If you are one of those people that thinks you can predict the future based on the first game of the year, than you my friend are crazy. Anyway, the Yankees still looked pretty awful out there yesterday. CC was his usual April self (for those of who don’t know, CC Sabathia notoriously pitches poorly in the month of April). The bats still think it’s March because they only scored two runs, and by the 9th inning it was difficult to find fans in the seats (the Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox 8-2). However, let me repeat it is only game 1 of 162. Now, if the Yankees are 10 games out of the wild card when their entire roster is back healthy in August, then we can all panic and run around pulling random fire alarms.

All around the rest of the league (where there were 12 total games played Monday), we saw more dominance by the pitchers we’ve gotten to know over the past couple of years. Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez were their usual lights out selves. While at the same time we saw, who I believe are the two best pitchers in baseball; Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw dominate. Stephen Strasburg pitched 7 brilliant innings in just 80 pitches. He also at one point retired 19 straight batters. That is uh how do you say it; INSANE. At the same time, no one had a better Opening Day than Clayton Kershaw. He picked up right where he left off last season by throwing a complete game shutout against his rival San Francisco Giants. And as if that wasn’t enough, Kershaw hit his first career home run. It wasn’t a bad day to be Clayton Kershaw. The regular season action continues today where there are 7 teams in play. Enjoy the games everybody!!

If you enjoy my writing, follow me over to intheneutralzone.com where I am a contributing author there as well. Also you can follow me on twitter @DaveEttinger2 or like me on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/DaveTalksSports. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!