Hey MLB - Next Time You Have Opening Day Please Tell Everyone About It First

Alright I don’t want to make a huge deal out of this but MLB is absolutely terrible at marketing their product. The last 24 hours have been ugly. First it was Mike Trout tea-bagging years of Machado/Harper free-agency drama with a record deal in the middle of the night. Now it’s launching Opening Day in the middle of the night without telling anyone. Honest to God raise your hand if you knew this was happening at 6am:

Exactly. No hands.

Opening Day is sacred… you can’t use it 3 times. You can’t tell me we’re Opening Day in Japan. Then we’re Opening Day for real. Then on April 8th it’s Opening Day at home. I don’t have that many Opening Days in the tank. I’m only one man.

In a perfect world we’d get one opening day that everyone could plan around. All games start at the same time and on the same day so we can all ditch out of work together and go to the bar. That kind of universal camaraderie goes a long way in today’s world.

You know what else goes a long way? Fly balls in the Tokyo Dome

There were 5 long balls today. This one from Tim Beckham included a big time bat flip that we like A LOT

I feel like that’s part of Japanese culture. Like if you don’t have a big bat flip then you can’t play little league in Japan. Don’t tell Matt Chapman tho.

This guy has quickly become one of the best players in the AL after posting 8.2 WAR in his age 25 season. His glove work is flithy

But not enough as the Mariners forced A’s pitcher Mike Fiers to throw almost 60 pitches in 3 innings. He looked pretty uncomfortable but you would too after giving up this grandslam

The Mariners lead got up to 5 at one point before settling in at 9-7. We saw several relievers, tons of fly balls and early emotion 4 innings into the 2019 MLB season with Ichiro getting an extremely rare standing ovation from the locals. If it’s any indication of what’s to come, 2019 is going to be an awesome year.

PS – Love you