The 2025 MLB regular season has arrived. Thursday was Opening Day in Major League Baseball, and 28 of the league’s 30 teams were in action. We saw familiar faces in new places, including Juan Soto having a relatively quiet Mets debut that ended with the slugger striking out against Josh Hader in a loss to the Astors.
The Yankees, meanwhile, started their post-Soto era on the right foot, taking down the Brewers with the help of a historic leadoff home run. The Red Sox, Phillies, Giants and Marlins got clutch hits to pick up Opening Day wins, while Adley Rutschman and Fernando Tatis Jr. had big days in victories for the Orioles and Padres, respectively.
Below are five key takeaways from 2025 MLB Opening Day.
1. The Dodgers are still perfect
The Dodgers escaped Opening Day with a 5-4 win over the visiting Tigers. Pair that dub with their two-game sweep of the Cubs in the Tokyo Series last week, and reigning World Series champs have their first 3-0 start since 2016. They’re also the first defending champion to start 3-0 since the 2001 Yankees.
Teoscar Hernández, coming off a career-high 33 homers in 2024, hit a go-ahead three-run bomb off reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. Later in the game, the peerless Shohei Ohtani contributed his second homer of the season — he also homered against the Cubs in his native Japan — to give the Dodgers an essential insurance run. Here’s a look at his opposite-field shot:
On the Detroit side, Spencer Torkelson had a homer and four walks. The Tigers managed some traffic on the bases against Blake Treinen in the ninth, but came up short in their comeback attempt.
2. The O’s power is no joke
The Baltimore Orioles brought their bats to Opening Day in Toronto as they racked up six home runs on Thursday in the eventual 12-2 throttling of the Jays. That put the O’s in elite Opening-Day company. Here are the digits of note:
Adley Rutschman and Cedric Mullins each homered twice, and Jordan Westburg made it No. 6 with his eighth-inning homer. The headliner, though, is new Oriole Tyler O’Neill, who extended his own MLB record by homering on Opening Day for the sixth straight year. Here’s a look:
Last year, the Orioles ranked second in the majors with 235 home runs — only the Yankees had more, with 237 — so they’re accustomed to bringing the thunder. And now they’re on pace for 972 homers this season! Not coincidentally, Blue Jays pitchers last season gave up the second-most homers in the league (208). Only the Rockies, who play at a mile above sea level, gave up more.
Power, needless to say, will be essential to the post-Corbin Burnes Orioles’ hopes in the AL East. So far, so good on that particular front, at least from the Baltimore standpoint.
3. Gore looked like a strikeout artist
The Washington Nationals fell to the Philadelphia Phillies 7-3 in extras on Opening Day, but Nats starter MacKenzie Gore more than did his part. Regard the lefty’s line for the day: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 13 SO, 0 BB.
Gore joins no less a moundsman than Bob Gibson as the only Opening Day starters in AL/NL history to strike out 13 or more batters with no walks and no runs allowed. Gibson turned that elusive trick back in 1967. Gore’s career-high 13 Ks also set the Nationals/Expos franchise record for most Opening Day strikeouts. The record had belonged to Max Scherzer, who K’d 12 in the 2019 season opener.
Unfortunately for Gore and the Nats, the Phillies got to the Nats bullpen and then broke through with four runs in the 10th to notch the come-from-behind win. Gore’s outing, though, raises hopes that he’s ready to take the next step toward ace-dom.
4. A clash of aces in Miami was good, but not great
Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, last year’s rookie phenom and one of this year’s NL Cy Young hopefuls, was in Miami on Thursday to square against Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner making his first regular-season start since undergoing the Tommy John surgery that cost him all of last season. The Alcantara sub-plot is that the deep-rebuilding Marlins are almost certainly going to trade him at some point, which adds a layer of importance to his starts.
As for Skenes, he made history from the jump. Via MLB.com: “Skenes became the youngest Pirate to make an Opening Day start since at least 1900 (22 years, 302 days), and the youngest across baseball since José Fernández for the Marlins in 2014. Skenes is the fastest No. 1 overall pick to make his first Opening Day start, eclipsing Mike Moore (No. 1 pick in 1981, Opening Day starter in ’84) and Stephen Strasburg (No. 1 pick in 2009, Opening Day starter in ’12).”
In 5 ⅓ innings, Skenes allowed two runs, both earned, on three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks. Good results, but Skenes is of course capable of much more.
As for Alcantara, he allowed two earned on two hits in 4 ⅔ innings with seven strikeouts and four walks. Command and control are sometimes the last things to return after Tommy John, so some fits and starts are to be expected. On the other hand, Alcantara averaged 97.2 mph with his sinker and on multiple occasions topped 99 mph. As for the secondary stuff, it looked like it does on his best days:
Potential trading partners, start your engines. Nothing wrong with either performance on Thursday, but better and more dominant days are ahead for this duo.
As for the rest of this game, the Marlins wound up prevailing on a walk-off knock by Kyle Stowers – the first Opening Day walk-off win in franchise history.
5. Yankees’ Wells made leadoff history
When he stepped to the plate Thursday, Austin Wells became the first catcher to hit leadoff in the 124-season history of the New York Yankees. And, when he crossed the plate later in the inning, he became the first player to hit a leadoff homer on Opening Day for the Yankees regardless of position. Wells gave New York a quick 1-0 lead with a leadoff homer against the Brewers:
“It was awesome, it was a really cool experience for myself not doing it ever,” Wells said about hitting leadoff after New York’s win (NY 4, MIL 2). “It was cool to hear the fans and just be the first batter of the season.”
Catchers do not hit leadoff often for obvious reasons. They tend to be slow and not especially good hitters, so most find themselves at the bottom of the lineup. Jason Kendall started 453 games at leadoff in his career, far and away the most by a catcher. Roger Bresnahan is a distant second with 66 career starts at leadoff.
Wells, 25, slugged 13 home runs and finished third in the AL Rookie of the Year voting last season, and the Yankees don’t have an obvious leadoff candidate. They gave Wells a look atop the lineup in spring training and he slugged four leadoff homers. That earned him the job and he went deep to start Opening Day.
Nine innings after Wells’ leadoff blast, Devin Williams closed the door on his former team, but not before the Brewers loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth. Williams struck out Christian Yelich representing the go-ahead run to end the game.
