Baseball is by far the longest season with 162 games over the course of six-plus months. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. But that may not be how fans are feeling after Game 1.
Opening Day is a great way to kick off the MLB season but it can cause many overreactions either way. After a long offseason, this is the first chance to see the new pieces playing for a new team and hope is restored for all 30 teams.
It’s hard to not overreact, even if you’re pretty high up in the front office.
Boston Red Sox Chief Baseball Operator Chaim Bloom joined WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Audacy Original Podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” and talked about the emotions of Opening Day.
“You win on Opening Day it feels like you’re 20-0. You lose and you feel like you’re on a huge losing streak,” Bloom said (34:22 in player above). “There’s just so much that goes into it. You kind of have to remind yourself whether it’s good or bad that it’s one game.”
The old saying goes that you can’t win a division in April but you can lose it. While an Opening Day loss may feel like the end of the world – or season – that’s not the case.
“And believe me, as a writer because you have like eight writers from every organization so you have to do some story either ‘All the pieces are coming together. This is exactly how it’s supposed to fit,’” Bradford said.
Or, on the other hand, the team could be under fire after a bad loss.
“2018 was a good example, forget about Joe Kelly, Cora was a first-year manager and a lot of people were saying he doesn’t know how to manage a bullpen, the game’s too fast for him. That’s what they were saying,” Bradford continued. “It’s insane.”
The “hot takes and so forth” will always be there but it’s important to remember that there are 161 more games after Opening Day. Those 2018 Red Sox seemed to bounce back just fine with Alex Cora leading Boston to a World Series championship.
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