One could only imagine what the sounds would have been like early if the Philadelphia Phillies were playing at Citizens Bank Park instead of on the road.
The excitement surrounding Opening Day would have assuredly turned into frustration when the Phillies repeatedly struck out time after time during the beginning stages of the contest.
It wouldn’t have surprised anyone if there was a smattering of boos coming from fans if this had taken place in Philadelphia, despite it being just a few innings into the first game of the 2025 season.
That’s because this isn’t a one off with this group.
The Phillies have squandered opportunity after opportunity in the playoffs because of their inability to be disciplined at the plate, chasing pitches and going for the hero play instead of just getting on base by any means necessary.
And after an offseason where the team and players talked about changing their approach at the plate, it was hard to tell if this game was a replay from ones that took place late in 2024 or if it was a new campaign altogether.
Philadelphia allowed Washington Nationals ace MacKenzie Gore to ring them up 13 times without issuing a single walk, a stat line that tied him with Hall of Famer Bob Gibson as the only two pitchers to do that on Opening Day in AL/NL history.
Gore is good.
He’s not Gibson.
Yet the Phillies made him look like that, something that has become all too common for this group in recent years.
But, the damage was avoided.
Once Gore was pulled before the seventh inning, Harper blasted his sixth career Opening Day home run to tie the game at one, setting the table for Kyle Schwarber to give them a 2-1 lead with his own solo shot in the same frame.
Jordan Romano had a rough first outing with his new team in his return to the mound, giving up two runs that tied things up at three in the bottom of the eighth. But Philadelphia pulled it out in extra innings when Alec Bohm hit a two-out RBI double in the top of the 10th inning that was followed up by J.T. Realmuto’s two-run triple.
Wins are wins, especially in a 162-game season, but this was not something to write home about.
In fact, the Phillies became the first team in Major League Baseball history to strike out 19 times and still win an Opening Day game, per Matt Gelb of The Athletic.
That’s winning the battle but potentially losing the war.
Philadelphia has to address the issues that have plagued them the last two playoff runs, and by striking out at an absurd rate and not putting the ball in play with just four hits before extra innings that weren’t homers in this game, that was the exact opposite.
