COLUMN: The good, the bad and the ugly from Opening Day

After spending months in hibernation and the past month thawing out in jealousy watching our favorite baseball teams play preseason games under the sun in Arizona and Florida, baseball is finally back.

Opening Day on Thursday, March 28, felt like an unofficial holiday, as it always does. When you win the first game, it feels like an omen for a successful future. The same goes for the opposite direction after a loss.

With so much going on around the American and National Leagues, here are the good, the bad, and, of course, the ugly from Opening Day.

__The Good__

Former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Tyler O’Neil set a new MLB record when he homered for the fifth straight Opening Day to put the Boston Red Sox past the Seattle Mariners 6-4.

It was extra special for the Canadian native, who set the record in the same stadium that he frequently visited as a fan when he lived in nearby British Columbia, and against the same team that drafted him a decade ago. The Mariners drafted O’Neil in the third round in 2013 but traded him to the Cardinals in 2017 for pitcher Marco Gonzales before he made his big league debut.

“Baseball is a funny game,” O’Neil told reporters after the game. “It brings everything home like that.”

The Red Sox are not expected to contend in a loaded American League East Division, but should O’Neil have a season similar to 2021, where he hit 34 home runs and 80 RBIs in the only season where he played over 100 games (138), Boston may be primed for a surprise run.

__The Bad__

Opening Day was not a promising one for Missouri’s two teams. Between the Cardinals and Kansas City Royals each scoring one run in their losses, the Show Me State looked more like the Show Me Nothing State.

The Cardinals are looking to rebound from a surprisingly bad 2023 season with a retooled starting rotation and the regular reliance on their program to produce productive young hitters to support Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. It just wasn’t a good look for the mainstay in the rotation who voiced his desire to tell the doubters to “eat [expletive]” giving up five runs and seven hits over 4.1 innings in a 7-1 loss against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Royals made a series of moves to improve their chances of a rebound after losing a franchise-record 106 games. They boosted the starting rotation depth with the addition of veteran pitchers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, who makes his Royals debut on Saturday. They also brought in veteran outfielder Hunter Renfroe, utilityman Garrett Hampson, and second baseman Adam Frazier for lineup fortification. However, a solo home run by Maikel Garcia was the only run the Royals could muster in a 4-1 loss against the Minnesota Twins on Thursday in Kansas City.

At least there are 160 more games to go.

__The Ugly__

There may not be a worse way to start a season that was already deprived of hope than with a 16-1 loss at the home of the defending National League champions.

The Colorado Rockies, coming off a quiet offseason after the franchise’s first 100-loss season, were on the wrong end of a 14-run inning in their embarrassing loss to the Diamondbacks on Thursday in Phoenix. That inning was the death of a thousand cuts, as the D-backs were able to pile on the runs without a homer. To put a bow on it, the 14th run came off the bat of an Arizona rookie named Blaze Alexander.

“It was the situational hitting, taking walks when you're supposed to, it was an all-field approach,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said during his postgame press conference. “We were a good hitting team.”

The last time the Rockies inspired any optimism was when they signed Kris Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million contract in 2022. Now the thing Colorado lacks the most, among a lot of things, is hope.