Phillies opening day: Bullpen implodes in loss; Brandon Marsh goes deep; Charlie Manuel throws out first pitch

Orion Kerkering to the rescue?

After the Phillies’ bullpen gave up nine runs in the seventh and eighth innings of Friday’s opening-day 9-3 loss to the Braves, Kerkering packed a bag to begin a minor-league assignment Saturday at triple-A Lehigh Valley, as scheduled.

Kerkering began the season on the injured list with what the Phillies characterized as a strained right forearm. Really, though, it’s a matter of building arm strength after missing a week in spring training with the flu.

The Phillies bullpen was supposed to be one of the strengths of the team, but that was far from the case in Friday's opener. The team got six shutout innings from starter Zack Wheeler before the wheels began to fall off.

Matt Straham took over in the top of the seventh inning, and allowed two runs (on an Adam Duvall double) before recording two outs. Ultimately Jeff Hoffman came in and was able to stop the bleeding.

Rob Thompson then turned the tied game over to Jose Alvarado in the eighth inning, and the veteran reliever faced seven batters, allowing three hits, two walks, and retiring just two hitters.

McKinley Kraynak has the opening day thing down pat.

She’s 9, a fourth grader from Phoenixville, and she was pumped to take in the first game of the season — again.

“It’s my ninth opening day, but it should be my tenth,” said McKinley. (”Stupid COVID” meant no one attended opening day in 2020, she explained.)

The hockey Gods can be finicky but the baseball Gods are clearly on the Flyers side.

With the Phillies home opener postponed to Friday due to weather and the Flyers back from their road trip and having the day off, don’t be surprised if you see some of your favorites at Citizens Bank Park.

“Hopefully no injuries this year and they can just roll from the start,” said long-time Phillies fan Joel Farabee.

Brian Snitker led the Atlanta Braves to Citizens Bank Park for opening day, but his family stayed home.

Two weeks after Snitker told Atlanta radio station WZGC that the atmosphere in Philadelphia during the playoffs last season was "rough ... to the point where it was concerning," the Braves manager spared his family for the season-opener Friday.

“My wife’s babysitting and the grandkids are in school,” Snitker said before the game. “They wouldn’t be anywhere, honestly, other than home.”

Zoe Sminkey, 5, was vibrating with excitement: a jumping, twirling, beaming live wire who was right where she wanted to be: at Citizens Bank Park for opening day.

Zoe’s dad, Zachery, drove the pair from their Woodstown, Salem County home to the ballpark early, not for tailgating, but to soak in the sights and sounds of baseball returned to life.

“The Phillies are going to win! Alec Bohm’s my favorite,” said Zoe, who’s been coming to Phillies games since she was a baby.

Overall, Philadelphia is 66-73-2 on opening day, dating back to the then-Philadelphia Quakers’ 4-3 loss to the Providence Grays in 1883.

Yes, there were two ties — both 1923′s opening game against the Brooklyn Dodgers and 1924′s against the Boston Braves were called due to darkness, because ballparks at the time didn’t have lights.

This is the 26th time the Phillies have faced the Braves on opening day. The first 13 came while the Braves still played in Boston, while the next three were during the team’s 13-year run in Milwaukee.

The Phillies didn’t play their 1972 home opener at Veterans Stadium until April 17, and, no, that was unrelated to common sense. A players’ strike pushed back the season, a wholly dismal season, in which the team won just 59 games, about half of them by Steve Carlton. And it essentially was a 1971 encore.

Aiming to sell more tickets, owner Bill Giles enlisted “Kite Man,” whose mission it was to ski down a ramp in centerfield, fly 400 feet to home pate, and deliver a ball to Mayor Frank L. Rizzo. A morning rain had backed off, but winds picked up in the afternoon, 10 to 15 mph.

Paul Dorian, a meteorologist with Arcfield weather, was there, sitting in nose-bleed seats. “I remember seeing him crash into the center field seats,” and he wondered “how the people could be booing him when he could be dead.”The Inquirer’s Matt Breen says the booing actually occurred when Kite Man – Richard Johnson, who accepted the job after two others backed out –when he hesitated at the top of the ramp. A wind blew him into the seats. He eventually flung the ball onto the field from the upper deck, and catcher Tim McCarver retrieved it on the mayor’s behalf.

Every year, the Phillies give away clothing, figurines, and merchandise at select games to allow fans to take home some keepsakes from their favorite team. These are exclusive freebies that you can only get at specific games, and tickets to these giveaway games sell out fast. There are also games considered “promotional,” games where there may not be giveaways but instead are a celebration of the Phillies community, such as Wall of Fame Night, Goya Latino Family Celebration, and the official retirement night of Phillies legend and 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels.

As always, there will be Kids Run the Bases and Senior Stroll the Bases events for the under-14 and over-55 crowds, respectively. Plus, there will be two chances to see fireworks shows over Citizens Bank Park. This year, the big news is that Dollar Dog Nights are over, replaced instead with buy-one, get-one promotions. (Not everyone is happy about this.)

Here are the promotions and giveaways at Phillies games this 2024 season.

Along with the strong winds blowing in from left and the quality of the pitching today, another factor argues against a slugfest when the Phillies host the Braves at Citizen Bank Park – temperature.

Temperatures during the game are expected to get no higher than the mid-50s. A comprehensive study of 22,000 games over a 12-season period documented that in games played in temperatures under 60 Fahrenheit, 12% fewer runs were scored, compared to when it was “warm;” that is, above 83 degrees.

The chill also evidently takes a chunk out of batting averages. Going beyond homers, Brandon Koch, a statistician and baseball enthusiast at the Univeristy of Minnetoa. and Anna K. Panorska, a mathematician and statistician at the University of Nevada, where Koch had studied, looked at batting averages.

Friday is forecast to be sunny and dry with highs in the mid-50s, said Joe DeSilva, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mount Holly. “It should be a nice day overall. ... Except for the winds.”

Sustained winds 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph, are expected throughout the game. That does not bode well for the Phillies' power hitters.

The winds will be blowing in from left-center toward the hitters. What difference might that make?

October baseball is becoming habit again in Philadelphia. After coming one win short of a second straight World Series berth, the Phillies are not just playoff hopefuls — they are title contenders. And with a payroll pushing $260 million, that’s exactly what owner John Middleton expects.

The championship window is wide open for a core of players who should keep the Phillies in the running for a World Series trophy for the next few years.

But first things first: What’s in store for the 2024 Phillies?