After months of speculation about how three major new rules would change the game, and a spring training filled with fast games and plenty of flubs, opening day of the 2023 Major League Baseball season finally arrived. And for the first time since 1968, every M.L.B. team started its season on the same day.
It was a busy day, with the action starting at 1:10 p.m. Eastern and finishing up at 12:45 a.m.
Here is what we learned:
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Try not to blink. Of the 15 games, 10 were finished in fewer than three hours. The shortest game was in Tampa Bay, where the Rays beat the lowly Detroit Tigers in 2 hours 14 minutes. But the improvement in pace was perhaps the most shocking in the Bronx, where the Yankees, who have long been known for their deliberate pace, handily dispatched the San Francisco Giants in 2 hours 33 minutes. That game featured 32 combined strikeouts and 276 combined pitches but still came in 40 minutes faster than an average Yankees game in 2022.
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Stolen base totals could soar. Anthony Volpe made his major league debut and the Yankees’ 21-year-old shortstop walked in his first plate appearance and immediately stole second base. That set the stage for a day that had as many stolen bases (21) as it had home runs (21). Perhaps more interesting: Runners were 21 of 23 on stolen base attempts, a success rate so high that even the most analytically-minded front office executives would nod in approval.
There was plenty to learn even outside the scope of the new rules.
