Netflix Baseball Looks Like Shit

On Wednesday, the New York Yankees played the hosting San Francisco Giants in MLB's Opening Night, which was the first of really three Opening Day–esque events to open the season. Today will be the more traditional event of nonstop baseball brain: day baseball into evening baseball into midnight baseball, the Pirates and Mets starting it off with just one ordinary afternoon ballgame and not an overcooked nationalist extravaganza, in what would have been a lovely opening to the season. Tomorrow will service the six sad teams, and fanbases, who will have to wait until day three for their Opening Day. But yesterday was a capital-E event, which naturally made it feel not very much like Opening Day baseball at all. Here was the one night game, scheduled to start at 8:05 p.m. ET, aired only on Netflix, which made the big event something one would have to pay specifically for, or, hypothetically, borrow a friend's laptop in order to watch. The players ran through a line of yellow taxi cabs (Yankees) or a cable car (Giants) on their way to the field. There was some sweaty, red-faced man who shouted, "This is baseball, this is America, let's go!" There was an American flag in the shape of the United States of America. There were some pyrotechnics in the shape of an American flag (not shaped like the United States of America). The first pitch was thrown at 8:25 p.m. Eastern, 20 minutes late, on a basketball or hockey schedule. It was strike one to Trent Grisham, which was finally a fact insignificant enough to feel real. The game did not wind up being close enough to sustain any tension or drama; after the pomp of its opening, it registered as an anticlimax. Despite the best efforts of Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, the Yankees put up five runs in the second inning and two more in the fifth, with Giants starter Logan Webb gallantly soaking up all of the punishment. Meanwhile, Yankees starting pitcher Max Fried threw 6.1 shutout innings, thanks to his full arsenal of, according to Statcast, seven different pitches. The Yankees would win 7-0, without any intrigue.