baseball 2018

Ready for baseball?!? Yankees-Jays. The Opener

It was a good day for American League aces as Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, Justin Verlander and Luis Severino -- the four best starting pitchers in my opinion -- combined to allow just two runs and 12 hits over 25.2 innings. Both of those came courtesy of a two-run homer in the first inning from Nelson Cruz off Kluber, enough to give Seattle a 2-1 victory. The most impressive performance, however, may have been Dylan Bundy's seven scoreless innings against the Twins. Maybe he's ready to make The Leap.

"If I'm on time and get my foot down and my barrel there, all I need is a chance, and good things are going to happen." —Giancarlo Stanton, discussing his timing. Aaron Boone called Stanton "deadly" when his timing is there.

Through a translator, Gary Sanchez said he thought Luis Severino's slider was staying in the strike zone a little too much in two-strike scenarios. He said he knows Severino can be sharper with the slider, and that he can do more to make batters chase and swing and miss. Worth noting that via ESPN Stats & Info, six of Severino's seven strikeouts came on sliders. He also threw the slider 48.4 percent of the time today, a higher percentage than he had in all but one of his 31 starts last season.

Giancarlo Stanton felt like a rookie again.

Stanton began his Yankees career in style , hitting the hardest-hit opposite-field home run since Major League Baseball began tracking exit velocity in 2015, adding an RBI double and a second homer into the center-field party deck in the ninth. Stanton's four RBI led the Yankees over the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 Thursday and gave Aaron Boone in a win in his first game as a professional manager.

Game 1-1

He smoke a grandslam