2026 MLB Daily Recap: Highlights from Opening Day

Most of the teams across Major League Baseball opened up their regular seasons on March 26. And, to say there were fireworks on the field would be an understatement. Both the Mets and Brewers had big days, while several rookies had explosive days in their Major League debuts.

Mets have grand victory in Queens

We’ll start with the kings of Opening Day in Major League Baseball, ironically, the team that plays in Queens County. The Mets won 11-7 against the Pirates, in what was a grand day for the team’s offense.

New York entered the bottom of the first down 2-0, thanks to one of Brandon Lowe‘s two home runs on the day. What followed afterwards was something we haven’t seen yet in Paul Skenes‘ career: a very bad inning.

Skenes conceded two walks and four hits against the Mets, and more importantly, five earned runs. The right-hander was taken out in the first inning, the first time that’s happened in his MLB career. Before the 26th, his shortest outing was a planned two-inning outing in Yankee Stadium during the final weekend of the 2024 season.

Granted, much of that was not on Skenes. Brett Baty hit a bases-clearing double in the first after Oneil Cruz got a terrible read on a fly ball, going in as opposed to falling back. And in the next at-bat, he lost a high fly ball off Marcus Semien‘s bat that allowed another run to score.

Juan Soto, Luis Robert Jr., Marcus Semien, and Francisco Alvarez each had two hits. Freddy Peralta (35% Whiff%) batted hard for his first victory as a Met.

Lots of strikeouts for the Brewers

The Brewers had a dominating victory against a team just to their south on March 26 (no, not the Cubs). Milwaukee beat up on the White Sox 14-2 on Opening Day but the story wasn’t the lineup. It was the pitching.

Jacob Misiorowski, the Brewers’ Opening Day starter, had a standout day for the team. Misorowski struck out 11 batters and picked up 25 swings-and-misses (58.1% Whiff%), most on the day out of all MLB pitchers.

After the right-hander left the game, Aaron Ashby, Grant Anderson, DL Hall, and Jake Woodford combined for nine strikeouts, which gave the Brewers 20 strikeouts on the day.

Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, and Everson Pereira all struck out three times each in the White Sox’s loss.

Many firsts across the league

Kevin McGonigle, JJ Wetherholt, and Carson Benge all made their MLB debuts on March 27. And, all three made impacts at the plate.

Benge and Wetherholt both homered for their respective teams. The latter hit a home run in his second plate appearance, while Benge went deep in the sixth inning, as part of a 1-3 day for him.