Baltimore beat up on CC Sabathia, Ken Griffey Jr. homered in his return to the Seattle Mariners and Emilio Bonifacio became the first player in 41 years to hit an inside-the-park home run on opening day.
Following a winter of worry about whether the recession would damage attendance, major league baseball returned across the nation Monday.
Atlanta beat World Series champion Philadelphia 4-1 on Sunday night and 26 more teams had been slated to open Monday before bad weather caused a pair of postponements: Tampa Bay at Boston and Kansas City at the Chicago White Sox.
They’ll now get going on Tuesday, when Milwaukee and the Giants were scheduled to meet in San Francisco in the last of the 15 openers.
In AL games Monday, it was: Baltimore 10, the New York Yankees 5; Seattle 6, Minnesota 1; Texas 9, Cleveland 1; and Toronto 12, Detroit 5. Oakland was at Los Angeles later.
es 4, San Diego 1; Arizona 9, Colorado 8; and Pittsburgh 6, St. Louis 4.
Even with economic worries, most openers were sold out despite some chilly conditions.
At Camden Yards, Baltimore took advantage of a wobbly Yankees debut by Sabathia, whose $161 million, seven-year contract is the richest for a pitcher.
Sabathia allowed six runs, eight hits and five walks in 4 1-3 innings. He threw two wild pitches and failed to strike out any batters for the first time since July 2005.
“I was terrible,” Sabathia said. “I battled from the first inning on.”
It was an inauspicious start for the high-priced Yankees. After missing a postseason for the first time since 1993, New York spent $423.5 million on free agents Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira during the offseason.
Adam Jones and Brian Roberts each had three of Baltimore’s 14 hits. Aubrey Huff drove in three runs and winner Jeremy Guthrie gave up three runs and seven hits in six innings.
At Minneapolis, the 41-year-old Griffey hit his eighth opening-day homer, matching the record set by Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. Junior also raised his total against the Twins to 41, his most against any opponent.
In the final opening day at the Metrodome before the Twins move to Target Field next year, Felix Hernandez allowed one run and five hits in eight innings to beat Francisco Liriano.
illwood allowed one run over seven innings in his fourth consecutive opening-day start, and the Rangers scored seven runs in five innings off AL Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee.
Hank Blalock and Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered for the Rangers, whose 15 hits off four pitchers matched their most in an opener. Lee who allowed only four earned runs in his first seven starts a year ago, then finished 22-3 with an AL-leading 2.54 ERA.
“There’s that quiet confidence about this team. Not many people share that with us, but that’s OK,” Millwood said. “We believe in each other. That’s how it felt before the game, during the game and after the game.”
At Toronto, Adam Lind homered, had four hits and drove in six runs – a Toronto record for an opener. Roy Halladay won despite allowing five runs and six hits in seven innings.
Umpires waved both teams off the field for nine minutes in the eighth inning after two balls were thrown from the stands in the direction of Tigers left fielder Josh Anderson. Groundskeepers cleared paper airplanes and empty beer cups from the warning track as the public address announcer read a message warning fans the game could be forfeited.
At Cincinnati, Francisco Rodriguez and the rebuilt Mets bullpen protected a slim lead for Johan Santana, who gave up three hits in 5 2-3 innings on a raw, 37-degree afternoon.
of the infield the rest of the way.
“They deserve all the credit. It’s great for us, and it was big for getting the comfort level up,” said Santana, whose bullpen blew five of his leads in the ninth inning last season.
Daniel Murphy drove in both Mets runs with a homer and a groundout.
“That’s what they expect from us all year long,” said Rodriguez, who got a $37 million, three-year deal from New York.
At Miami, Bonifacio went 4-for-5 against his former team, stole three bases and scored all four times he reached. Florida also hit three homers over the fence, including Hanley Ramirez’s grand slam.
Bonifacio’s inside-the-park homer was the first on opening day since Boston Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1968.
“Pretty exciting,” said Bonifacio, who at first thought center fielder Lastings Milledge was going to make the catch. “When I saw him start running back I said, ‘Oh, he doesn’t have it,’ so I started running hard.”
At Houston, Carlos Zambrano allowed one run and five hits in six-plus innings, his first start against the Astros since a no-hitter on Sept. 14. Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez homered off Houston’s Roy Oswalt.
Zambrano earned his first opening-day win in five chances.
another game of my career, another game for the Chicago Cubs.”
At San Diego, Hiroki Kuroda allowed one run and four hits in 5 2-3 innings to outpitch Jake Peavy, and the defending NL West champion Dodgers won despite Manny Ramirez going 0-for-3 on his first opening day with Los Angeles. The crowd of 45,496 was the largest in Petco Park’s six-year history.
At Phoenix, Tony Clark and Arizona newcomer Felipe Lopez each homered from both sides of the plate. Eight home runs were hit in the game, including the decisive shot by Chad Tracy leading off the seventh inning against loser Jason Grilli.
Lopez and Clark became the first switch-hitting teammates to homer from both sides of the plate in a game since the Yankees’ Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams on April 23, 2000. It had never been done on opening day.
At St. Louis, the Pirates were down to their last strike when Jack Wilson hit a three-run double to cap a four-run ninth off rookie Jason Motte.
Ryan Ludwick broke a 2-all tie with a leadoff homer in the eighth off Tyler Yates, and David Freese added a sacrifice fly off winner John Grabow for a 4-2 lead.
on doubled to left-center on an 0-2 fastball.
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