3 overreactions to Yankees’ thrilling Opening Day victory against Astros

Throughout his career, Juan Soto has earned a reputation for being at his best when the lights are the brightest. We saw this when he dominated the Astros in the World Series before he was even old enough to legally buy a beer.

Soto seems to be the type of player who relishes the spotlight and lives for the big moments. The Dominican star never seems to get rattled at the plate or in the field. He’s comfortable hitting with two strikes and never questions his own abilities.

This has to be music to the ears of Yankees fans who have watched too many guys come through the Bronx in recent years and fold under the pressure of playing under the bright lights in New York City. Players like Joey Gallo and Sonny Gray quickly come to mind, and luckily for the Yankees, Soto doesn’t seem like this kind of player. Not only does he seem unfazed by the spotlight, but the bright lights actually seem to elevate the 25-year-old’s game, which was evident more than ever and brought a reaction from Aaron Judge in the opener.

Anthony Volpe looks like a different hitter

Much of the talk around the Yankees this off-season centered around young shortstop Anthony Volpe and the progress he had made as a hitter throughout the winter. Volpe is one of the team’s most important players, and his development is key.

The ideal leadoff hitter has a high on-base percentage and the speed and aggressiveness to wreak havoc on the base paths. The ideal version of Volpe fits that definition perfectly. Last season, he was aggressive on the basepaths early, racking up nearly a dozen steals in the first month of the season. Unfortunately, the rookie couldn’t maintain that pace due in part to his struggles to get on the base pass consistently. He still managed to have a 20/20 season, but if he had maintained his pace from the early going he could have swiped close to 50 bags.

Volpe’s aggressiveness fell off a bit when he got on base as the season went on, but the bigger problem is that he simply wasn’t getting on base. You can’t steal second if you don’t get on first, and Volpe had serious struggles getting to first base.

Throughout the off-season, the young shortstop worked on flattening his swing. He seems willing to give up selling out for power in exchange for making more contact, which should lead to a higher on-base percentage. The infielder looked much more comfortable at the plate throughout this year’s spring training and on Opening Day, and the game seems to be slowing down for him.

Volpe has all the tools to be the ideal leadoff hitter for the Yankees, but he must improve his on-base percentage in order to earn that role. It’s not just getting base hits, but Soto struck out too much and didn’t earn enough walks last year. He collected three walks on Opening Day, a sign that his improved patience is already paying dividends. If he can get his OBP to around .360, Volpe at lead-off will help unlock the best version of the Bombers’ lineup.

Yankees can challenge the franchise regular-season record of 114 wins

The 1998 Yankee team was absolutely dominant, setting a franchise record with 114 regular season wins on their way to a World Series championship. Could this year’s team flirt with breaking that record? Absolutely, and it would be quite the turnaround from their dismal 82-win performance last year.

It would be quite the feat for the team to go from its worst regular season in nearly 30 years to its best regular season of all time in just one year. But, this team is talented and it can be done.

Aaron Judge may not have homered in on opening day, but he looked locked in at the plate and still demonstrated his prodigious power with a rocket double down the left-field line.

Soto appears to be a positive influence on the rest of the lineup, and his good habits seem to be rubbing off on everybody else. It’s a small sample size, but hitters up and down the lineup appeared to be much more comfortable being patient at the plate. The whole lineup did a great job of working the count and letting the opposing pitcher get himself into a difficult situation and then forcing him to work his way out of it.

The Yankees are simply a different-looking team this year. There’s much more energy and intensity in the locker room, and everybody appears locked in to the collective goal of winning a World Series title. The stars set the tone, and the intensity Judge and Soto showed in a late-March game should rub off on everybody else.

If the team continues to play for each other and play with energy, the sky is the limit for this team’s ceiling. The lineup has talent and depth, and if the rotation can hold things down until Gerrit Cole returns, the Yankees could challenge the 1998 club for the most regular-season wins in team history.