The 2026 season has begun, and the Yankees started their year off with a big 7-0 win over the Giants in San Francisco. The game was in their hands nearly the entire way, with a first inning jam being the only threat to Max Fried’s day before the offense jumped Logan Webb for five runs in the second inning. They tacked on two more runs in the fifth, one of them unearned, before Webb’s day came to a close; meanwhile, Max Fried shoved despite not getting much swing and miss action and exited after retiring
the first batter of the seventh inning.
All in all, it was a pretty good day for New York. Now they’ll have a day off to reset before wrapping up the series with two more games in San Fran, and while they’re taking a breather there will be plenty of breakdowns coming analyzing that opening romp (some of them coming from this very site). What there will also be plenty of, and probably enough to drown out anything else productive, are overreactions to the Opening Day result. So, why not have a little fun and play into them ahead of time? Go ahead and give us your hot take on what a particular result from Game 1 of 162 means.
There are certainly plenty of narratives you can run with from this game. Starting on the offense’s end, much was made of the team’s decision to “run it back” in 2026 with largely the same roster as last year. Well, last year’s offense led the league in offensive production, and they got off to a fantastic start already this year as well. Is Brian Cashman vindicated? Was running it back the right call? Of course it’s too early to actually say so, but you know that start has got to feel good for the Yankee general manager.
One bat that didn’t shine in the effort, however, was Aaron Judge. The captain had a brutal opener, going 0-for-5 with four straight strikeouts followed by a groundout in the ninth inning. Coming off the heel of the World Baseball Classic finale where Judge didn’t show up (though to be fair, neither did most of that star-laden team) the spotlight was on the superstar outfielder to shake things off, and the opposite happened. Is Judge in store for a rough start to the year like he played in 2024? That season did, of course, lead to him going nuclear for the rest of the year and winning the AL MVP award, but people had their pitchforks out for how poorly he played in that opening month or so and they could reappear at a moment’s notice.
And how about Max Fried, the star of the night on Wednesday? The ace pitched a brilliant game despite clearly being rusty, striking out just four batters but pitching into the seventh before handing the ball off to the mop-up crew in the bullpen. There’s a lot of expectations on Fried’s shoulders after he stepped up last year with no Gerrit Cole around, and if he could surpass them again in his second season in the Bronx something truly magical could unfold. He just narrowly missed out on getting a podium finish in the Cy Young race last year, finishing fourth, but could he leapfrog a spot or two this year? Could he even win the whole thing if that’s how good he looks while still being off? The race is hardly won in a day, but it doesn’t hurt to start off with a 0.00 ERA. What caught your eye from Opening Day, and what has you irrationally excited or disappointed from the night?
Today on the site, Josh leads off with some thoughts on the strange bedfellows MLB has partnered with this year in light of the gambling scandal with Emmanuel Clase still playing out right in front of us. Then Nick wishes one-time Yankee José Vizcaíno a happy birthday before coming back later in the afternoon with the Rotation Depth Inventory for March, and Andrés looks more closely at how Max Fried executed without his top command last night.
Today’s Matchup
Off-day
