Game 1 - An Electric Opening Day!

2022 Chachi Special Edition #1

2022 Topps Now Spring Training #ST-11

2020 Topps Heritage Minor League #175

1959 Topps #300

Phillies 9, Athletics 5
Game 1 - Friday Afternoon, April 8th in Philadelphia
Record - 1-0, 2nd Place, 1/2 game behind the Mets

One Sentence Summary:  In an electric Citizens Bank Park, the first "normal" opening day since 2019 was celebrated with a 9-5 win over the visiting Athletics.

What It Means:  As promised, the offense was impressive and the defense was at times shaky.  Bryson Stott, making his big league debut, mishandled three balls in a rough seventh inning, but redeemed himself with an RBI-double in the eighth.  The base running was also suspect, which I believe can be chalked up to an over-excited and aggressive Phillies line-up.

What Happened:  Kyle Schwarber introduced himself to the Phillies fans with a lead-off first inning home run, and then earned the first curtain call of the season.  In the third, Bryce Harper doubled home Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins drove in a pair with a line drive single to right and Didi Gregorius drove home Hoskins with his own RBI single.  Every Phillies starter had a least one hit, other than Matt Vierling, although Vierling contributed a sacrifice fly in the sixth.  Nick Castellanos, who had struck out in his first three at-bats, doubled home Harper in the seventh.  Stott and Schwarber added a few more runs in the eighth with Stott's first big league double and an RBI-single from Schwarber.

Aaron Nola cruised through the first three innings, and his first hit allowed was a solo home run to Chad Pinder in the fourth.  It was relatively smooth sailing for Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand and Seranthony Dominguez out of the bullpen, and Corey Knebel pitched a perfect ninth, striking out two, in his Phillies debut.

Featured Cards/Field Report:  For the second year in a row, Doug and I were there!  Here's a summary of a memorable opening day:

• We were there right after gates opened at 1:05.  Traffic was heavy and I've never seen the parking lots surrounding the ballpark so crowded.  Tailgating had obviously been going on for the better part of the day and we ended up parking right outside Lincoln Financial Field.
• Doug was craving Bull's and we waited in a long line for his standard order - BBQ pulled pork with cole slaw on top, with sides of baked beans and corn bread.
• The pre-game ceremony was once again impressive, with the Phanatic skydiving into the ballpark with the first pitch ball and Dan Baker throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.  Baker, the long-time public address announcer for the Phillies, was celebrating his 50th opening day with the club and his catcher for the first pitch was the first batter he every announced - Larry Bowa.
• We were lucky to have Diamond Club seats with my brother-in-law and his Dad.  Tommy Greene was seated a few rows in front of us.
• The Phillies Authentics store now has a wide selection of baseball cards for sale!  The cards all seemed reasonably priced and they were organized by player (Utley, Thome, Harper, Rollins, etc.) or alphabetical in white boxes.  There was a nice selection of star cards underneath a glass countertop.  I added the 1959 Topps Richie Ashburn card and Doug got a Luke Williams game-used base Topps Now card.  I'm not collecting the 1959 Topps set for a little bit, but we thought it would be cool to add a card to our set from the ballpark.
• The ballpark was PACKED.  We had trouble walking around and navigating through the lengthy lines that stretched beyond each concession stand.  The paid attendance was 44,232, and it seemed as if there were at least 10,000 more people than that there.
• Word is that team-issued photo card sets will make a return in 2022 after a two-year absence.  According to an employee from the Phillies Authentics store, they expect to have Yearbooks and photo card sets available for sale in May.

Transactions:  On Thursday, to get to the 28-man opening day roster, Stott (inf) had his contract selected from Lehigh Valley.  To make room for Stott on the 40-man roster, Rafael Marchan (c) was recalled and placed on the 60-day injured list with a knee injury.  Odubel Herrera (of), Sam Coonrod (rhp) and Ryan Sherriff (lhp) were placed on the 10-day injured list while James Norwood (rhp) was placed on the bereavement list.

On Thursday afternoon, we learned the unfortunate news that Mickey Moniak had suffered a hair-line fracture in his hand and would miss four to six weeks.  Moniak was set to be the club's opening day center fielder after his extremely impressive spring, and he received a warm welcome from the fans during pre-game introductions.  Simon Muzziotti (of) was recalled from Lehigh Valley to take his place.

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