Designed to break your heart - the 2026 MLB regular season thread

Opening Day is less than a week away!

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

Joe Castiglione reading this in 2024

https://i.postimg.cc/Gtj09X13/IMG-1317.gif

Play ball.

It is, it is, with time out now and again for some fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWQmXFMZUMc

i wonder how ball/strike challenges will impact umps calling anything near the zone a strike on 3-0 and the zone shrinking on 0-2. like i wonder if it will be an unwritten rule that you don't challenge those calls. i guess it will be situational.

like i wonder if it will be an unwritten rule that you don't challenge those calls

god, I hope not

Chris Sale already said he wouldn’t challenge anything

Tyler O’ Neill home run opening day: y/n?

Roki Sasaki 15 earned runs in 8 2/3 spring innings, 2.77 WHIP

Slotted as #3 starter, I believe

it seems weird that not every team is playing on opening day. i didn't check every team but i noticed that KC/ATL doesn't start until friday

I read six teams aren't starting until Friday. It was to give NBC an exclusive window in prime time.

that's lame

The Yankees and Giants are off on Sunday too.

i read that it used to be tradition that the reds would always play first, guess that went out the window!

Speaking of the Reds, did we all see Joey Votto’s gift to them for opening day?

https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/joey-votto-gifts-street-clock-to-reds-at-great-american-ball-park.html

https://www.bajablasthomeruns.com/

ugh Bert Kreischer this season is doomed

first walk of the season drawn by . . . luis arraez!

I can't recall a time ever when the Giants opened up the season first, and it's been probably a decade since they opened at home.

My thoughts as well.

I don’t have Netflix and thought I could piggyback on my brother's account, like I have done in the past but they locked me out. $8 wouldn't kill me but nah.

golden sombrero for Judge while every other Stankee is the reincarnation of Roberto Clemente

So, sounds like the Netflix broadcast was not popular

it made roughly $1m for each team, which is clearly all that matters

Watched I think a couple of innings and then went to sleep, opening day to forget. This is all my fault, the last time I watched the Giants open their season against the Yankees they also got shit on. Apparently I missed Bonds show up, drop a nuke that he almost signed with the Yankees, and leave again lol

https://bsky.app/profile/lukeknox.me/post/3kbnxlj5s6h2d

Ozuna loudly booed at Citi field

Nbc announcers spotlighting a betting parlay for the game feels like a new low.

yeah, i was watching a mlb highlight reel of the opening game yesterday, and it showed a ABS challenge (called strike; upheld as it just caught in the zone) and the announcer was like ".....and if you bet on the first ABS in MLB being upheld...you would be a winner" or something.

thanks

honestly would love to get a 30-second break from each game and just show me a live feed of a near-empty casino at 5 am with one dude and a bucket of tokens, just feeding the slot machine and staring at his phone

IT'S BIG BALL CHUNKY TIME

Skenes gave up 5 runs in the bottom of the first and then got pulled after the Mets batted around!

“As we go to commercial break, we’d like to congratulate those of you who took that parlay where Skenes would give up 5 runs and be taken out after two-thirds of an inning. Enjoy your payout and we’ll be right back.”

Tbf, those runs sounded like a team effort (I missed the first few runs tho)

Just saw the boxscore for Skenes...yikes--hope he's not hurt.

He looked ok. Think it was just bad luck/ one of those games

america's feelings are hurt due to the iran war fuckup and the it's affecting skenes as well

Mets lineup is very sexy

Carson Benge’s first big league hit is a home run

that's my boy!

unintentionally funny and interesting piece of cards radio commentary from ricky horton

“a bad day to be a reliever….and a bad day to be in this city"

however, we’re in the middle of cardinals devil magic comeback against the rays so all is well

jj wetherholt will be mvp by 2030, easy, i’m calling it now, no problem

this guy jj wetherholt, he can’t miss

Skubal today: 6 innings, 3 hits, 6 K, no walks, no earned runs. Without any recency bias whatsoever, I am officially declaring him the best pitcher in baseball.

Cubs extending Nico Hoerner

The dodgers still looking very dodgery

Man its good to be back

was at the game today, pretty great atmosphere, I really love going to opening day because it comes right as the weather starts getting better, it's nice to see all these people around again

did not appreciate that it was against the White Sox, aren't opening day games supposed to be divisional??? oh well, we beat the hell outta them, notched 20 strikeouts which is apparently tied for a Brewer record

15 teams in each league means at least one game has to be intraleague, I guess

A lot of solid debuts today… Wetherholt, McGonigle, Benge & DeLauter

Just watched Jeff Kent chatting it up with Kruk and Kuip in the broadcast booth, he was smiling his head off and in great form, which I gather is not vmic for him

are the giants going to score this year

Nope

You know “Jac” is his initials Jeffrey Allen Caglianone

I did not know that

Italians Americanizing their names!

my deepest apologies to our overseas partners. but imgbb was down for me at the time! let me check now.

ok it's up now. again you have my deepest, most earnest and patriotic apologies.

https://postimages.org imo

Italians Americanizing their names!

and then, somehow, there's greg dulli

royals score in every inning today! home team so no abs in the 9th obv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtdNefccOKU

Tyler Tolbert went 5/5 last night and 5/5 again tonight, after going 2/2 in his game prior to these two, tying the MLB record for consecutive hits.

Ryan O'Hearn homered 3X and drove in 10 for PIT. ATL had a position player pitching by the time he came up the 4th time so I thought he'd add to the total but no, only a single.

(xpost)

https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mcdowell/article316423219.html

The chances of a .200 hitter recording 12 straight hits: 1 in 244.1 million. The proverbial odds of being struck by lightning twice: 1 in 234.1 million.

i think he has one of the fastest sprint speeds in the mlb and a couple of those hits were basically swinging bunts

Finally a Dodger player everyone can like:

https://i.ibb.co/ccvm9rSX/image.png

the red sox are supposed to play the mets tonight but apparently are still stuck in chicago as of right now

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL2189/history/20260710/1810Z/KORD/KLGA

They have arrived!

Ohtani scratched for today's start and all all-star festivies.

He's supposedly still gonna DH for the time being?

Left knee soreness apparently

thank you based mod xp

1st pitch = 7:50pm

the red sox, who rank near the bottom of the league in home runs, have hit 4 2-run homers against the met this series and are on their way to sweeping them, just like they swept the yankees, angels and white sox on this run

Their entire starting rotation is on the IL iirc (Crochet, Suarez, Early, Houck, Oviedo?), never an easy journey once that happens imho.

still the fewest runs allowed in the AL

and tied with cleveland for the fewest runs scored 😭

one of six teams in the AL with a positive run differential

JORDAN WALKER 😤

good for him

i have never watched a home run derby (and don't think i've watched an ASG since 1991)

still scarred by seeing clips in which chris berman yells BACK BACK BACK tho

philly fans never change lol

Highlights were fun and heard Hunter Pence on the call. He's come a long way on the broadcasting side.

Jordan Walker 2026 salary: $799,400.

Jordan Walker Home Run Derby bonus: $1,000,000.

Good for him.

nearly 4x as much WAR as kyle tucker (2026 salary: $60,000,000, not calculating deferrals and other weird accounting shenanigans)

Whoever the ASG home plate ump is, his laugh is great.

Roberts got too cute with Wrobo >:(

It's always the Dodgers blowing the all star game smdh

Did not realise Arraez was having a season! Cost of being condemned to the 2026 SFG

Hope Junior is okay... fuck.

Wroblesky is trash.

Hate to Love a babip king

Thought this was nice from last night (didn't see more than two batters):

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1413327937079576

cleveland game was postponed tonight due to the AQI . . . is that a first?

has it been determined what exactly happened to Cal Raleigh? He has to be hurt right?

rays devil magick has run into the bosox buzzsaw

i think raleigh was a patriotic asshole during the world baseball classic so god has punished him

haha.

not so haha:

when asked if Ohtani would pitch again this season:

“I guess anything is possible..."

^Dave Roberts

Manny Machado bunted for a hit for the first time since 2017 and hit a HR in next at bat

<3

Barves booth v. bemused by the bunt. "Pretty sure that's not what they're paying him for" etc. I figured they jinxed it by saying that and that he'd score, but Elder got out of the inning clean.

Yankees broadcast v Pirates and before the first out.

Garreit Cole scouting report:

Love Will Tear Us Apart
Groove is in the Heart
Expresso

Joy Division, just in case you were wondering, Live Will Tear Us Apart.

I know that song, it's great song

I know Sabrina Carpenter of course

Yes, one of my current favs

Of course Deee-Lite's Groove Is in the Heart

Hmm

They then did it for the Pirates side:

Just Can't Get Enough
I Can't Write Left Handed
Against the Wind

I knew ever song except I Can't Write...