We’re 4 days into the season. Trayce Thompson and C.J. Cron are leading the league in homers with 3. Thompson is on pace for 324 RBIs. Jacob deGrom has a 12.27 ERA for the Texas Rangers and he’s not on the IL yet.

There are 3 unbeatens left in the league, the Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, and Minnesota Twins. The Rays and Twins beat up on the Tigers and Royals respectively. The Ranges though took it to the defending National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies to the tune of a 29-11 run differential.

Games are going faster. Unless its Opening Day in St. Louis and the Toronto Bloop Jays are stringing together 16 singles 10 with exit velocities under 83 mph. No one took advantage like George Springer, who squared up his first hit of 2023 then proceeded to get jammed, reach, and dink 4 more for a 5-5 day. He has gone 0-10 since.

My hottest take coming out of the opening weekend? Nolan Arenado is your 2023 NL MVP. He finished third in MVP voting last year. He seems locked in after a solid showing in the WBC. And its become trendy to pick Manny Machado as a better third baseman. Machado is good, but Arenado is the best third baseman in the MLB.

Ohtani Trade Watch

The Angels kicked off 2023 by losing a game where Shohei Ohtani pitched 6 innings, struck out 10, gave up 2 hits, and went 1-3 with a walk and loss to the Oakland Athletics. Your standard Tungsten Arm O’doyle game. Anthony Rendon capped it all off by trying to fight a fan.

Things were not looking good for Ohtani remaining an Angel for the remainder of the season.

The Angels followed it up with 2 wins and Trout and Ohtani hanging 881 feet of dong on the the A’s on back-to-back pitches.

We’re still at the point in the season where the Angels will trick you into believing they can make a run. They may even be in first 3 weeks into the season, but then the wheels come off. For now Ohtani is not moving.

Links

This fan ran onto the field to propose and got absolutely blasted by security.

The Baltimore Orioles snatched defeat from the jaws of victory dropping a can-of-corn and following it up by allowing a walk-off homer.

​Logan Webb spotted Anthony Volpe one of his two allowed pick-off moves per at-bat for some reason.

​This cool ump-can shot made even better with Astros striking out.

Crossword

Test your knowledge of the opening games of 2023 with our own crossword.