The current setup in the big leagues that allows teams a scheduled day off following Opening Day allows us a unique opportunity to fully digest the game that we’ve waited so long for. Meaningful baseball! How great is that? After five or six weeks of tune-up games, split squads and pitchers not throwing full games or repertoires, the players and coaches get to leave it out on the field, for things are finally at stake.

And while it can be dangerous to try make any grand predictions or conclusions based off one game of the season — maybe don’t prepare a Hall of Fame bust for Joey Rickard quite yet — it is still possible to do some meaningful micro-analysis of Game 1 of the season, and quite frankly just put the pen to paper to journal some possibly fleeting thoughts. Whaddya say?

The game should have never started when it did.

That’s easy for me to say now, but honestly stopping and starting just isn’t ideal for anyone. There are obvious logistical issues that come from postponing Opening Day, but that’s why the day off Tuesday is built in.

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The bigger possible issue at play on Opening Day — which really didn’t factor in — is that the differential between starting pitchers can be neutralized when a game is stopped and started. That is to say, if Ervin Santana was way better than Chris Tillman — or vice versa — that’s one way that the gap can be closed. Then again, that’s a spot where bullpen gaps can be more obvious too. Baltimore’s bullpen is quite a bit better than Minnesota’s, but it didn’t appear to be blatantly obvious on Monday. Of course, it was just a one-game and seven inning sampling.

Tillman came out throwing darts.

Again, clearly a small sampling but encouraging for Orioles fans nonetheless. Tillman threw just 22 pitches (17 strikes) over two innings, but fanned five hitters and induced a weak popup from Brian Dozier to start the game. Tillman reached as high as 95.3 mph with his fastball according to Fangraphs’ PITCHf/x (his fastest thrown pitch since 2014) and settled in at 93.1 mph. He also got a strikeout on his slider, which he threw just twice but with pretty good results.

Both bullpens — for the most part — looked solid.

Obviously they each had hiccups as the game was scoreless when both starters departed, but nothing really stood out as egregious. From an outsider’s perspective it looks like Mychal Givens — who was completely nasty by the way — is better suited throwing an inning at a time. For the Twins, Casey Fien had a rough inning but has largely been a dependable part of that bullpen for four seasons now. Either way, it’s a tough spot to be put in as a manager; that is, having to piece together seven innings from your bullpen on Day 1. To reiterate, it helps that both teams are off Tuesday to regroup, but it still digs a bit of a hole that teams don’t like to dig out of.

For the Twins, Trevor May and Ryan Pressly were impressive. May froze Matt Wieters impressively to end one of his innings of work, and looks every bit like a legit back-end reliever. Pressly fanned a pair in his two innings of work, and may have undermined his hopes of working late innings by doing so well in long duty. Without an obvious long guy in the Twins pen — Michael Tonkin is sort of penciled in but has never really done it — Pressly could be that guy.

For the Orioles, Tyler Wilson came in and was steady. He couldn’t match Tillman’s strikeout pace — who would expect that? — but threw three solid frames, allowing just a pair of baserunners. Brad Brach, Darren O’Day and Zach Britton combined to close it out, something Orioles fans may see a lot of this year.

Bonus Trivia Question

Prior to Rickard, who was the last Orioles player to have multiple hits in their big-league debut? (answer below)

Rickard’s debut was about as good as a Rule 5 player can have.

He didn’t have a perfect day at the plate, but I can’t recall the last Rule 5 guy whose name was being chanted by fans in his third plate appearance of his first big league game. Not only did Rickard record hits in his first two plate appearances, but he also saw 14 pitches over four at bats, so he didn’t get himself get caught up in the moment either. It’s a long road for a Rule 5 guy to do this and sustain it — it worked for Delino DeShields Jr. in Texas last year — but this is a fine start.

Side note: Should he have let the ball in the left field corner/stands drop when the Twins tied the game? You hear that strategy floated quite frequently, but almost never see it actually followed through upon. Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Your “Can’t Predict Ball” moment of the day: Mark Trumbo has four total bases — all singles.

Trumbo and Rickard were the only two Orioles with multiple hits, but it was the latter who stole the show — in a way — with four singles. This was the sixth four-hit game of Trumbo’s career, but the other five all included extra-base hits. In fact, four games included at least one home run, and the other — May 17, 2012 against the White Sox — included a double. Trumbo does have one career five-hit game, which came on Sept. 10, 2013 against Toronto. He had three doubles and a home run in that game.

The incredible fly ball J.J. Hardy hit that somehow was blown fair — and caught by Eddie Rosario.

If you watched the game you were surprised by it, but a video (courtesy Fangraphs, August Fagerstrom) is the best way to show how this all panned out. This was before the second rain delay — though you could deduce that by seeing Ervin Santana on the mound — and it was…..strange:

Part I – The Orioles bullpen is incredible.

Part of this is coming from a person who just sees Minnesota’s bullpen regularly, but it’s a great mix of flamethrowers with guys like O’Day who get strikeouts with deception — but consistently so. It’s a really well constructed unit, and when it remains intact and working within roles as expected is going to be among the best in baseball. The sole hiccup was Givens, and even he looked outstanding in his first inning of work before things went sour in the second.

Part II – Britton is amazing.

I don’t see much of Britton here in the Twin Cities, but he’s the kind of guy where you look at his numbers and simply can’t imagine anyone being that dominant. Then he comes on to pitch and you wonder how anyone gets a hit off him, or ever elevates the ball. Granted, with nearly an 80 percent groundball rate last year, nobody really did. Even with Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel in the American League — the East no less — I think there’s at least a fighting chance Britton is the best closer/reliever in the league this year. No walks, tons of strikeouts and grounders only with a good infield defense is an incredible, tasty recipe.

Trivia Answer

Jonathan Schoop had two hits in his debut on Sept. 25, 2013. Prior to Schoop, the three most recent were Manny Machado, Rhyne Hughes and Brandon Fahey.

So there you have it. These are my Opening Day thoughts. What are yours? 

Brandon Warne
Brandon Warne

Orioles Analyst

Warne is a Minnesota Twins beat reporter for 105 The Ticket’s Cold Omaha website as well as a sportswriter for Sportradar U.S. in downtown Minneapolis. He also contributes to FanGraphs / RotoGraphs.

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