Heading into Monday, two Major League Baseball teams had yet to play at home: The Cubs and the Red Sox.
Rather coincidentally -- or maybe not -- those two teams entered the week as the two most disappointing teams in baseball, as alluded to in my power rankings. The Red Sox have Monday off before their home opener finally takes place on Tuesday. The Cubs did open at home on an unseasonably beautiful day in Wrigley Field Monday and we'll talk about that below. Someone else who started the season poorly is loving it at home, too.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway once every team has had its home opener is the schedule starts to become a bit more set. No more of those play Monday, off Tuesday type situations, generally speaking.
Select games can be streamed regionally via fuboTV (Try for free). For more on what channel each game is on, click here.
Baseball schedule, scores for Monday, April 8
FINAL - Rays 5, White Sox 1 (box score)FINAL - Cubs 10, Pirates 0 (box score)FINAL - Phillies 4, Nationals 3 (box score) FINAL - Orioles 12, Athletics 4 (box score) FINAL - Astros 4, Yankees 3 (box score) FINAL - Cardinals 4, Dodgers 3 (box score)FINAL - Mariners 13, Royals 5 (box score) FINAL - Braves 8, Rockies 6 (box score) FINAL - Padres 6, Giants 5 (box score) FINAL - Angels 5, Brewers 2 (box score)
Astros top Yankees, are 4-0 at home
The Astros were among a handful of expected contenders to get off to a head-scratching terrible start. They came home late last week with a 2-5 record. Third baseman Alex Bregman said in an interview before the home opener that they were viewing that game as the actual start of the season. A proverbial clean slate. It's a good mentality, especially in a sport with such a long season. It also seems to have worked. The Astros, fresh off sweeping the A's, moved to 4-0 at home with a comeback win over the Yankees on Monday.
It was 3-1 Yankees through six, but the Astros stormed back. Robinson Chirinos had a two-RBI double in the seventh to tie it and then the baseball Gods were smiling on the Astros with this go-ahead Carlos Correa single:
The big takeaway is, of course, the Astros shaking off that first road trip of the season. It always figured to be the case and they are now above .500 at 6-5.
Mariners keep powering up
The first team to 10 wins this season is the Seattle Mariners. Sure, they had a two-game head start due to the games in Japan, but they still had to win those. They entered this series in Kansas City leading the majors with 27 home runs. They also led the AL in average and slugging. Things aren't gonna look much different in the morning on stats pages. The Mariners offense was relentless in Kauffman Stadium. They scored 13 while pounding out 15 hits.
The power surge continued. Dan Vogelbach hit his fifth homer. Dylan Moore clubbed a prodigious shot for his first. Jay Bruce hit his sixth. Edwin Encarnacion went deep twice.
That second one made it a very likely win into a laugher, moving the score from 9-4 to 12-4.
Domingo Santana didn't homer, but he did double and now has a whopping 19 RBI.
One of the biggest surprises here early in the 2019 season has been the Mariners and it's due in large part to an overly powerful offense. They are just crushing the ball and it's been really fun to watch.
Hoskins piling up RBI as Phillies win again
The Phillies won again on Monday to push their NL East-leading record to 7-2. The offensive hero in this one was Rhys Hoskins, though we should also mention Odubel Herrera's two-run blast tying the game in the fourth inning. Hoskins homered the next inning to give the Phillies the lead:
As noted in the tweet, Hoskins seems to have a nose for the big homer. He then added an insurance run that it turns out the Phillies would need in the ninth. Through nine games, Hoskins already has five homers and 15 RBI. Is that a lot? It sounds like a lot ...
Rhys Hoskins has 15 RBIs in nine games this season. Since 1920, when RBIs became an official stat, the only other @Phillies players with 15+ RBIs over their first nine games of a season were Dolph Camilli (15 in 1935), Mike Schmidt (15 in 1976), and Pat Burrell (17 in 2005).
— Elias Sports Bureau (@EliasSports) April 9, 2019
I fully expect Hoskins to be among the league leaders in RBI throughout the season. Thanks to the offseason additions, he's now hitting behind Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura and Bryce Harper, which is a big upgrade in the on-base percentage world to what he had last year.
Also of note: The Phillies are already 5-1 against the rest of the NL East.
Common theme emerges on Dodgers losses
The Dodgers are one of the best teams in baseball at 8-3 here in the early going. An early thing to watch, however, would be the struggles of setup man Joe Kelly. He's had such an inconsistent career but was a key piece of the Red Sox World Series championship bullpen last year. The Dodgers signed him to a three-year deal this past offseason. Let's look at the Dodgers losses this year:
March 29: Kelly blown save.
April 1: Kelly blown save and loss.
The third loss of the season happened Monday night in St. Louis and wouldn't you know it ...
April 8: Kelly blown save.
Kelly was not used in setup duty in this one, but he still torched the game. He came in during the sixth inning with a runner on first and no out. He issued a walk, allowed a game-tying single and then uncorked a wild pitch that would plate the eventual game-winning run.
There are always other people to blame. Kelly didn't allow the baserunner that ended up tying the game and the Dodgers only scored three runs. We're also looking at a player with a 13.50 ERA, 2.33 WHIP and three blown saves and two losses when his team has three losses.
On the bright side, he's one of the few things that has gone wrong for them so far this year.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, have evened things up at 5-5. They've now been 1-1, 3-3 and 5-5.
Home cooking provides hope for Cubs' bullpen?
The Cubs enjoyed some home cooking on Monday in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, building their 10-0 lead in the second, third and fourth innings alone. There was a lot of funkiness in the second inning in particular. The Pirates committed three errors, intentionally walked Jason Heyward to get to Jon Lester with two outs and then Lester doubled. Anthony Rizzo hit a line drive off Pirates pitcher Jameson Taillon's head (he would appear fine and stay in the game) and then Javier Baez hit one off a bounce by throwing his bat at it. Seriously:
Normally in a 10-0 result, the bullpen wouldn't be the story but it absolutely is here. In 33 1/3 innings so far this season, the bullpen had an 8.37 ERA. It did come in with some momentum, as Tyler Chatwood, Kyle Ryan and Allen Webster combined for four scoreless innings and six strikeouts in Sunday's loss to the Brewers. When Lester was removed from the game in the third inning due to hamstring tightness, that 6-0 lead didn't feel safe. Instead, look what the Cubs got:
Brad Brach: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K (he even entered with two on and no out and got out of it)Brandon Kintzler: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 KRandy Rosario: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 KPedro Strop: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 KMake that now 11 straight scoreless innings for the Cubs' bullpen and it has involved seven different pitchers, none of them being Steve Cishek and he figures to mostly be reliable moving forward.
We can't yet declare the bullpen fixed and the personnel still looks like it has lots of downside, but things are looking up after an unmitigated disaster of a start that included blowing three games the Cubs should have won. It meant they returned home 2-7 instead of 5-4, but they're home now and likely feeling pretty good.
Highlight of the night: MVP-on-MVP crime
The sirens and the tweet say really all we need to know:
The beauty of baseball in just one play.
Quick hits
