What Happened on Opening Day (Part 2) of the 2022 MLB Season (2024)

Major League Baseball's Opening Day continued Friday. The Athletic brought you the latest news, analysis, updates and more throughout the day. Check out all our coverage below.

Friday's scores

• Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (11 innings)
• Tigers 5, White Sox 4
• Brewers at Cubs, postponed
• Rays 2, Orioles 1
• Phillies 9, A's 5
• Mariners 2, Twins 1
• Dodgers 5, Rockies 3
• Giants 6, Marlins 5
• Braves 7, Reds 6
• Mets 7, Nationals 3
• Blue Jays 10, Rangers 8
• Padres 3, Diamondbacks 0
• Astros 13, Angels 6

(Bold indicates season opener)

Required reading

• What's next for Aaron Judge and the Yankees after the sides couldn't agree on an extension
• What Happened on Opening Day (Part 1) of the 2022 MLB Season

(Photo of Yankees: Maddie Malhotra / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)

Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (11 innings)

• Improved defense and roster balance on display: Observations from the Yankees’ season-opening win
• Rosenthal: Aaron Judge can make the case his value is more than what the Yankees offered
• McCullough: The Yankees were willing to gamble on Aaron Judge. But Judge will make an even bigger bet on himself
• Red Sox put contract distractions aside, but can’t get past Yankees in first rivalry faceoff

Tigers 5, White Sox 4

• Javier Báez and the Tigers win opener, showing why they could be threats in the AL Central
• Lucas Giolito injury, Opening Day loss foreshadow difficult April ahead for White Sox

Rays 2, Orioles 1

• Myriad Orioles Thoughts: Jorge Lopez’s confidence; John Means’ outing; Opening Day bliss

Phillies 9, A's 5

• There’s a new offense in town — and a DJ: ‘A different excitement’ around Phillies, heard loud and clear in opener win

Mariners 2, Twins 1

• ‘He’s an ace. He’s a No. 1’: Robbie Ray comes up big in debut with Mariners
• As Twins prepare for life without Taylor Rogers, Jhoan Duran displays ‘closer stuff’ in Opening Day loss to Mariners

Dodgers 5, Rockies 3

• ‘A little microcosm of what we can do’: Dodgers flex their lineup depth in Opening Day win

Giants 6, Marlins 5

• Brandon Belt enters on a boat and the Giants refuse to let an Opening Day victory get away
• The Giants’ Opening Day was perfection, and it was proof that more seasons should start at home

Braves 7, Reds 6

• Austin Riley elite and underrated; Charlie Morton, Matt Olson big in Braves win
• Two Reds pitchers have nights they’ll never forget despite 7-6 loss to Braves

Mets 7, Nationals 3

• Buck Showalter takes advantage of early opportunity to galvanize Mets
• Mets' Francisco Lindor exits vs. Nationals after hit in helmet, passes concussion testing

Blue Jays 10, Rangers 8

• Blue Jays complete thrilling comeback win over Rangers in home opener to remember
• Rangers opener takeaways: This might be what it looks like, and that’s OK for now

Astros 13, Angels 6

Padres 3, Diamondbacks 0

Brewers at Cubs, postponed

Trea Turner said the Dodgers' brass approached him in recent days to tell him no extension offer was coming before the season, all but securing he will hit free agency this winter — potentially as the top available shortstop. Turner told The Athletic he wasn't frustrated by the decision.

“I told them from the second I got traded over, me and Andrew (Friedman) had a phone call, and I said, ‘Just be honest with me,’” Turner said. “I’m here to play baseball. It’s what I focus on. It’s what I’m worried about.

“The money will take care of itself. It’s why you have agents and whatnot. So I’m not worried about it. I just asked them to be honest with me. They were honest with me, a few days ago, a week ago, whatever it was. It’s time to play, and time to try to win a World Series.”

Crew chief Mark Carlson said Nationals pitcher Steve Cishek was ejected not for the pitch that hit Francisco Lindor, but for his actions after the benches cleared.

"He continued to escalate the situation after the fact," Carlson said after the game. "By coming in towards the melee, basically. Instead of getting away and not being a part of it, he continued forward towards the bench-clearing."

To the average fan, and maybe even the average person in baseball, Aaron Judge would have been wise to accept the Yankees’ offer of a seven-year, $213.5 million extension. But the argument for Judge taking the deal, on top of his one remaining year of arbitration, is almost exclusively a baseball argument. Judge almost certainly sees himself as more than just another top player, in part because the Yankees and Major League Baseball have marketed him as more than that.

Judge, who turns 30 on April 26, is perhaps the biggest sports star in the nation’s biggest market, a player who has proven he can handle the pressure of playing in New York, a larger-than-life figure both on and off the field. The difference in the seven-year term the Yankees offered and the eight-year extension he requested, according to sources, is not terribly significant. But Judge wanted an average annual value in the range of the $36 million Mike Trout received in his extension with the Los Angeles Angels, and the Yankees offered an AAV of $30.5 million.

DUNEDIN, Fla. — From the opposing dugout last year, Matt Chapman saw something special in the Blue Jays.

“I noticed that they had a lot of fun together. It seemed like all of them really pulled for each other,” said Chapman, now standing outside the Blue Jays clubhouse at TD Ballpark as a member of the team. “You see guys that are really talented and have a lot of individual success.

“At the same time, rooting just as hard for their teammates and they’re watching their at-bats, they’re paying attention, they’re excited for their teammates. I picked up on that, I picked up on their energy.”

From the West Coast, Yusei Kikuchi, while suiting up for the Seattle Mariners, noticed the Blue Jays’ unique celebrations. “The thing that they had with the suit after the home runs, that looked like a lot of fun,” he said through his translator Kevin Ando after finishing a spring training start.

Even after just being around the team for a few weeks, Kevin Gausman picked up on how the Blue Jays carried themselves. “They’re all pretty close and nobody takes themselves too seriously,” he said while at his locker in the Blue Jays spring training complex. “It makes for a fun environment.”

Across the industry, fun is the word often used to describe these Blue Jays. It’s understandable why.

If the season opener between the Red Sox and Yankees was any indicator of the year to come, it’s going to be as much of a battle in the American League East as the preseason predictions indicate.

Despite a week full of contract extension distractions surrounding Red Sox stars Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, the Red Sox were locked in early on Friday in front of a lively crowd at Yankee Stadium with a quick three-run, first-inning rally off Yankees starter Gerrit Cole. Yet it surely couldn’t be that easy — and ultimately, it wasn’t. The Red Sox battled through 11 innings before finally losing, 6-5, on a walk-off single up the middle from Yankees’ newcomer Josh Donaldson.

“From pitch one, even the introductions, the atmosphere was awesome,” manager Alex Cora said. “Everybody knows who we are, who they are. The other teams in the division. Every pitch, every play, you better get into it because when that 162 comes, you look back, like, ‘Wow, I took this day off or didn’t give my best this day’ and paid the price.”

The reasons for the Giants opening every season on the road are sound and practical. It’s a matter of logistics. Getting a ballpark ready for 40,000 people isn’t as simple as pulling a comically oversized lever, especially after a month when the base of operations is in another state.

Opening on the road sets up more home games in the dog days of summer, when they might be appreciated or needed more. The weather is better later in the season, too, so any exchange of April games for August or September games is a plus. All of these reasons are valid.

Friday afternoon’s opener, however, is proof that the Giants should begin more seasons at home. Even when they don’t involve a wild, wacky, come-from-behind walk-off win, true home openers are among the purest baseball experiences that exist.

The lockout prevented Mariners manager Scott Servais from getting the chance to dive deeply into knowing and understanding what made his new players, like starting pitcher Robbie Ray, really tick.

Servais, of course, was certainly aware of Ray’s body of work — the Cy Young Award he won last season with the Blue Jays, Ray’s exploding fastball and his devastating slider. That was evident to anyone.

But it stood to reason that Servais was going to need more time to get a full understanding of Ray, the person. On a cool Friday afternoon in Minnesota, Servais learned a fast lesson on what it’s like to try and take the ball from Ray in one of his starts.

Kenley Jansen gives up three in the ninth but the Braves win 7-6, series is even at 1-1.

Olson gets his first three Braves hits, d'Arnaud drives in three runs, Ground Chuck impressive start.

Santiago Espinal drives in the go-ahead run with a double to centre field. Blue Jays up 8-7 in the bottom of the sixth.

I see Adam Cimber up in the 'pen, too, now that the team is ahead.

Altuve's first homer of the season gets the scoring started in Anaheim.

Astros lead 1-0 with a man on first and second in the bottom of the first.