It’s a big home opening day, starting with the Mets visiting Washington. Jacob deGrom takes on Stephen Strasburg. Both pitchers walked one and struck out seven in their first outings allowing one run. Strasburg comes in with a slightly lower ERA as he lasted 6 1/3 innings versus 5 2/3 for deGrom.

An hour later, Boston welcomes the Rays to the first 2018 game at Fenway as Yonny Chirinos makes his first MLB start for the Rays, while David Price takes the hill for the Red Sox. Chirinos got his MLB career off to a good start with four shutout innings of relief, as he is part of the Rays four man, short start experiment. Price pitched a bit better at home during his Red Sox tenure, allowing a .243/.285/.413 slash line at Fenway versus .253/.306/.389 on the road.

The Miami Marlins make their way north for the Philadelphia opener as Caleb Smith battles Nick Pivetta. Smith, an acquisition from the Yankees, struck out eight in 5 1/3 innings during his first start for the Marlins. He had a good minor league strikeout rate, but no where near that high. Pivetta allowed runs in his first start, but no home runs. After giving up 25 last season in 133.0 innings, continuing to control the long ball should help him improve.

The White Sox welcome the Tigers and Jordan Zimmermann as James Shields throws the first pitch at home for Chicago. The starters are two of the three pitchers that since the start of the 2016 season allowed at least a .500 slugging percentage (minimum 1000 batters faced). The sluggers on both teams should be looking forward to hitting this afternoon.

James Paxton and Kyle Gibson square off as the Mariners help the Twins open Target Field for 2018. The Indians roughed up Paxton in his first start, as the lefties in the line-up went four for six against the Seattle left-hander with a double and a homer. Gibson comes off consecutive seasons allowing a 5.07 ERA. He allowed no hits in six innings of work in his first start, but walked five batters. He is an unusual Twins pitcher in that he allows a high walk rate.

Finally, the Diamondbacks send Robbie Ray against the Cardinals as Adam Wainwright comes off the disabled list for the Cardinals home opener. Ray struck out eight in five innings in his first start, but the other two legs of the three-true outcomes stool came up short. He allowed three home runs and three walks. Wainwright posted a 4.81 ERA the last two seasons, but managed a 25-14 record. His three-true outcomes were not bad, but his timing was poor. There were certain base situations where he got crushed.

Enjoy!