MLB Opening Day

As the calendar flips from March to April, it's that time of year again, and it's one of the best times of year.  It is Major League Baseball's Opening Day.  Usually, there was one Sunday night game, and then the rest would play the next day.  But, this year we got treated to three games on the first Sunday of the baseball season.  So, we had to wait seven hours less than we did last year.  Not much difference, but any cut into the wait is a good thing for baseball fans.
The three match-ups that we did get were pretty good ones.  The first one was a divisional rivalry in the NL Central between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals in Pittsburgh.  The offenses were almost shut down in this one.  The scoring got started when the Pirate pitcher Francisco Liriano had a single, which is one more run than he actually gave up to the Cardinals.  Adam Wainwright gave up three runs in six innings if work, so he was good, not great.  Liriano had the same amount of innings but gave up zero wins and got the win.
Then, the game that was kind of forgotten about was the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays in Tampa Bay.  Toronto got off to a hot start against Chris Archer off of a Edwin Encarnacion two run single.  Marcus Stroman made the start for the Blue Jays, pitching eight innings and only allowing three runs off of six hits.  The Rays got Hank Conger on third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth down 5-3, but they couldn't drive him home and get the tying run on base.  5-3 was the final score.
The big one was the Kansas City Royals against the New York Mets.  The schedule came out in August, so this was a great coincidence.  This was a rematch of the 2105 World Series, which the Royals won 4-1.  It was Matt Harvey against Edinson Volquez, who pitched a great game in Game One after his father died,.  Harvey also pitched Games 1 and 5 last year like Volquez did, and had a blod clot in his bladder and almost didn't pitch.  At 4-3 with one out in the top of the ninth, runners were on the corners with one out.  Closer Greg Holland struck out both David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes to get the tough save.
Twelve games tomorrow, including the Chicago  Cubs (Arrieta) at Los Angeles Angels (Richards)