Did you notice these cool details from MLB Opening Day?

After an offseason filled with turmoil and uncertainty, Major League Baseball kicked off the 2022 season yesterday...with two postponements, one of them Red Sox at Yankees. Yeah, that wasn’t a great way to kick things off. Pushing back the start of your marquee series is never a good thing,especially for a sport that’s dying for relevancy. I mean, let’s be honest, there was a large market of people that didn’t watch any baseball yesterday, opting instead to watch Tiger Woods at the Masters. I understand that. It’s Tiger Woods.

That being said, there were some cool things that happened during Opening Day yesterday. You may have seen some depending on what games you were watching, but here’s a list of some of the best and most noteworthy happenings from yesterday’s action.

Former Boston and Texas catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia has the longest last name in MLB history at 14 letters. His last name was so long, it barely fit on his jerseys. Instead of just writing his name across the top of his letters, Rangers’ uniform makers were forced to curl his name around his back, his letters starting below his numbers. Since his retirement in 2018, Major League Baseball hasn’t had a similarly wacky long name to marvel at. Obviously, that’s not something the league needs, but it was fun to marvel at just how in the world jersey makers managed to fit the entirety of Saltalamacchia on the back. Well, in 2022, we see the return of the awesomely long name, and it’s from a player we’re all very familiar with.

We’ve grown to know and love this player by the name Dee Gordon. However, in 2020, he opted for the name Dee Strange-Gordon to honor his mother who was killed in the middle of that year. That’s 13 letters and one hyphen, tying it for the longest name (character-wise) in MLB history. And yes, it looks as great as you’d hope it does. As I said earlier, Gordon made the name change in 2020 but, of course, fans were unable to see it in all its glory due to COVID-19 that year. And since Gordon didn’t play at all in 2021, the first time we, as a collective fandom, got to witness the name up close was during Opening Day yesterday.

Here’s what we need to keep in mind when comparing the names Strange-Gordon and Saltalamacchia though. Saltalamacchia has two L’s and an I. It does have an M. I’ll give it that, but Strange-Gordon has zero thin letters meaning that every stitch on the back of his jersey takes up more space. When Strange-Gordon was with the Mariners, his name dipped below the ‘9' on the back of his jersey entirely. It does the same with the Nationals, but not quite to the same extent. Still, given the Nationals’ affinity for large fonts on the back of their jerseys, it’s definitely a sight to see.

Last year, Milwaukee Brewers’ ace Corbin Burnes started off the season better than anyone else in history. He struck out 58 batters before walking a single one. Yes, that’s an all-time record. He didn’t walk anybody the entire month of April. It wasn’t until his sixth start that he allowed his first free pass. Surely, with that kind of incredible control, Burnes was looking to repeat that feat in 2022. He didn’t.

The very first batter that Burnes faced in 2022, Rafael Ortega, got on via… you guessed it… a walk. In total, Burnes walked three batters yesterday across five innings. He only faced 21 batters, total. To put that in perspective, Burnes walked three or more batters just four times throughout all of 2021. He never walked more than three.

I’m not saying this was a bad start for Burnes, but his walks were up. His strikeouts were down, and Nico Hoerner, who had homered only three times in his three-year career prior to yesterday, took Burnes deep. I’m not saying to sell all your stock in Burnes, but it’s just funny to see the vast difference in outcome between 2021 (6.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 11 K) and 2022 (5.0 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K).

Despite winning a Cy Young Award with the Royals in 2009 and spending the first seven years of his career there, Greinke had never won an Opening Day for the Royals. He barely got a chance. The only time he started for the team on Opening Day was 2010, the year after he won the Cy Young. What happened? Greinke pitched six solid innings of two-run ball (only one earned) to give his team a 4-2 lead heading into the seventh. The Tigers scored six runs in the seventh and won by a final of 8-4. Yeah, you can imagine Greinke was probably a little upset.

Greinke finally got his second opportunity on Opening Day, now back where his career started. Despite squaring off against one of the game’s top pitchers in Cleveland’s Shane Bieber, Greinke outperformed his adversary, giving up only one run on five hits and one walk across 5.2 innings. Although Greinke did not walk away with the ‘W’ next to his name, his team came away with the win thanks to a two-run eighth inning.

I don’t think anyone has ever seen Greinke smile before, but after his great start yesterday, Greinke talked about how fantastic the energy and weather was during his post-game interview. You can see the faintest grin float across his face as he looks down and shakes his head, almost as if in disbelief that he’d finally returned home. It was a great game and to see Greinke finally help get K.C. a win on Opening Day in Kansas City more than a decade after leaving the team...that was special. I don’t mean to take away from Pujols’ return to St. Louis, but everyone is going to talk about that anyway.

There’s tons of talk about small-market teams in baseball. “It’s not fair that they can’t afford to keep their best players.” “How are they supposed to compete?” Those concerns for competitive balance across MLB were only heightened by the 2022 offseason that saw the Tampa Bay Rays trade away a few of their best players so that they wouldn’t have to pay them. The Oakland A’s spent a whopping $0 on free agents this offseason. Basically, if you bought a ticket to opening weekend, you spent more money than the A’s did. They spent no money and still managed to trade away Matt Olson, Sean Manaea and Matt Chapman — three of their best players from years past.

Therefore, it was quite a shock when it was announced that the Pittsburgh Pirates were signing third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes to an eight-year, $70 million deal — the largest deal in team history. This was a bold move for a team with zero expectations heading into 2022, but at least it was a step in the right direction for the Pirates. Maybe if this deal works out, they’ll make more risky moves with their money. Then, maybe they can start competing...and Hayes is hurt.

Thankfully, this was a “very minor” injury. Hayes merely left the game with cramping in his left thumb/forearm. Wait... what... Cramping in his thumb?? Is that a thing?

However, this is just another example of why small-market teams are often so hesitant to give young stars big contracts. Hayes had played just 120 career games before yesterday. He hadn’t played more than 100 games in a single season. The Pirates know Hayes is a magnificent talent, but they don’t know whether or not his body can hold up for an entire season. While this is just a minor injury, the Pirates front office was surely holding their breath when he got taken out of the game. Hopefully, this minor setback won’t be enough to deter them from extending Bryan Reynolds or giving Oneil Cruz a massive contract when he breaks into the big leagues.