7 winners and 3 losers from MLB’s opening weekend

We are just four days into the 2019 MLB season — six days for the A’s and Mariners, who opened early in Japan — and far too early to draw conclusions. Domingo Santana is on pace for 270 RBI while Christian Yelich, Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger are on pace for 162 home runs, in case you were wondering.

Despite the short time frame, opening weekend was all about first impressions, and these performances stood out.

The reigning National League MVP homered in each of the Brewers’ first four games, matching a major league record held by five others — Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1998), Nelson Cruz (2011), Chris Davis (2013), and Trevor Story (2016). Yelich picked up right where he left off in 2018, red hot. Yelich is hitting .500 in the early going, and also added a walk-off double to his tally on Sunday.

Since last year’s all-star break Yelich is hitting .373/.462/.806 with 29 home runs in 69 regular season games. That’ll get it done.

The season is a marathon but Seattle is off to a quick sprint at the start. Not only did the Mariners win both games against the A’s in Japan, but then they returned home and took three of four games from the defending World Series champion Red Sox.

Mariners shortstop Tim Beckham is hitting a robust .435 with five extra-base hits. After an offseason more notable for what they traded away then what they added, the Mariners’ 5-1 start out of the gate was unexpected. Yet here they are atop the American League standings.

We knew the all-star first baseman was very good, and the Cardinals did too, signing him to a five-year contract extension before the season started, after acquiring him during the winter. On Friday in Milwaukee, Paul Goldschmidt launched three home runs, the second time in his career he has done so.

Goldschmidt did so in just his second game with St. Louis, the first player in major league history to hit three home runs in either his first or second game with a new team, per Elias.

The Dodgers led the National League in home runs and runs scored, so a strong offense isn’t much of a surprise. But what was eye-popping Thursday was how quickly they got out of the gate. Los Angeles slammed eight home runs in a rout of the Diamondbacks — including two each by Joc Pederson and Kike Hernandez — setting a major league record for most home runs hit on opening day. The previous record was six.

Los Angeles has 14 home runs through four games. In 2018, when they led the NL with 235 home runs, they didn’t hit their 14th home run until their 15th game.

New York is off to a fast start, winning two of their first three games, thanks in large part to Pete Alonso (.500, 3 doubles) and Jeff McNeil (.444, double, triple) having strong opening weekends. Their performance earned them intriguing monikers from Mets teammates.

OK, that isn’t so much a nickname for McNeil, but “You can’t sneak cheese past a squirrel” is a pretty fantastic quote.

The higher end of the market this offseason proved fruitful, with Manny Machado and Bryce Harper each cracking the $300 million mark as free agents and both Mike Trout and Nolan Arenado signing lucrative long-term extensions. But for a second straight winter the crunch was felt in the middle tiers, with money hard to come by. To top things off, The Athletic reported that MLB rewarded with a token championship belt to the team that did the best job in keeping salaries down in salary arbitration cases.

With frustration already mounting after a pair of barren winters, the Players Association was understandably peeved with this revelation.

“That clubs make sport of trying to suppress salaries in a process designed to produce fair settlements shows a blatant lack of respect for our players, the game, and the arbitration process itself,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said last week.

The Yankees slugger got off to a scorching start, hitting a three-run home run in his first at-bat, and holding that 5.00 OPS until his sixth plate appearance of the season. Luke Voit since joining New York at last year’s trade deadline is slugging .683 in 162 PA, which is incredible. But even more amazing was this photo of Voit’s arm as he was hit by a pitch on Thursday.

The right-hander had a rough first season with the Cubs, a trying year that ended much too early with an elbow injury, one that required arthroscopic surgery in September. Having last pitched in a major league game last May 20, Yu Darvish ‘s start on Saturday had an air of anticipation to it.

But then things went haywire, with Darvish walking a career-worst seven, while recording only eight outs. He allowed three runs in an eventual Chicago loss, and even weirder was his start to the game against the Rangers, his former team. In his first 10 batters faced, six were walked and four struck out.

Almost no matter the time of day there is traffic on the freeways in and around Los Angeles, so fans come to expect a long ride home after every game at Dodger Stadium. Unless the game ends at 1:15 a.m., that is. The Dodgers and Diamondbacks battled well into the night on Friday night and into Saturday morning, needing 13 innings for Arizona to pull out a 5-4 victory. 39 players were used, and the total contest lasted six hours, five minutes, the longest regular season game in Dodger Stadium history by time.

For one night at least, the LA traffic was a breeze after the game.

The defending World Series champs had a rough go of it on the mound in Seattle during the opening weekend, with each of the first four starters allowing at least six runs. Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi each allowed three home runs, and Sale on opening day allowed seven runs in three innings after allowing nine runs in 35 innings in his first six starts of last season.

Boston’s starting pitchers have a 13.20 ERA through the first four games of the season, and dropped three of four games against the Mariners.