The 2026 MLB season gets underway with a standalone Opening Day game on Wednesday between the Yankees and Giants. We basically have three Opening Days this season, with this game on March 25, 11 games on March 26, and then eight games on Friday, where six teams will start their seasons. The early-season schedule is always a bit janky with weather days built into the equation, so we’ve got an odd first weekend, but it should be a good one with baseball back.
This standalone tilt is on Netflix, so hopefully you’ve got a subscription. Max Fried vs. Logan Webb gets the season started and if we’re lucky, we’ll get an “Arson Judge” reference!
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New York Yankees (-123, 7) vs. San Francisco Giants
How To Watch Yankees vs. Giants Opening Day
Network: Netflix
Date: Wednesday, March 25
Time: 8:05 p.m. ET
There are a lot of new faces in the Giants dugout, while there are very few changes for the Yankees. For starters, San Francisco hired former Tennessee Volunteers manager Tony Vitello, as the 47-year-old is the first skipper in MLB history to go straight from being a college head coach to an MLB manager. Along with that, we’ll see newcomers Luis Arraez and Harrison Bader out there against the southpaw Fried. The game flow will determine if we see new relievers Caleb Killian or Ryan Borucki, but we definitely won’t see new starters Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser.
With the right-handed Webb on the bump, the Yankees won’t have Randal Grichuk in the starting lineup, and he’s the lone new face on the position player side. Rule 5 draft pick Cade Winquest made the team in a low-leverage reliever role and we’ll see starter Ryan Weathers in New York’s next series against Seattle. Otherwise, the Yankees are running it back with the same roster as last season.
That’s not the worst idea, as the Yankees led MLB in position player fWAR, wRC+, wOBA, home runs, BB%, and SLG. (I have a handy stats glossary for all of these acronyms!) This is a tough lineup to match up against because of the distribution of left-handed and right-handed bats, so it will be a stiff early test for Webb, who is one of the game’s most consistent starters and priced at 17/1 to win the NL Cy Young Award at DraftKings.
Webb finished last season with a 3.22 ERA, 3.58 xERA, and a 2.60 FIP over his 207 innings of work. It was the sinkerballer’s third straight season with 200+ innings, but also his best season from a K% at 26.2%. Spring Training stats should be taken with a grain of salt, but Webb’s ST K% was 26.3%, an encouraging sign that his K% bump has some staying power. That’s a stat that stabilizes at a low number of plate appearances, thus carrying some predictive value going into the regular season.
Webb had a bit of a tough time in 2020 during the COVID year, but from 2021-25, his highest ERA has been 3.47 and his highest FIP has been 3.16. He’s a low-walk, low-HR, high GB% pitcher, posting a ground ball rate of 53.2% or better in each of those five seasons. Theoretically, against a Yankees lineup that walks and slugs at a high rate, Webb’s skill set is about as good as it gets in hopes of neutralizing this lineup. It also helps that he owns a career 2.84 ERA and 2.72 FIP in 547.1 career innings at Oracle Park.
As you would expect in an Opening Day game with two aces on the bump, the Yankees have a formidable hurler of their own in Fried, a left-handed version of Webb. Fried has never posted an ERA higher than 4.02 in nine seasons at the MLB level and his highest FIP in a full season is just 3.72. Like Webb, Fried is a serial worm-killer, averaging a 54% ground ball rate in his career. Also like Webb, Fried is stingy with the free passes and strikes out more than enough batters to get by in that department.
Fried’s first season with the Yankees – and first season not with the Braves – was a good one with a 2.86 ERA, 3.37 xERA, and 3.07 FIP, impressive numbers made even better by the fact that moving from the NL East to the AL East was a step up in both park factor and opposing offense.
The Yankee left-hander does draw an easier assignment on paper than Webb, given that the Giants were 17th in wRC+ at 97, meaning they were 3% below league average when adjusted for park factor and the league-wide run environment. Adjusting for park factor is hugely important, especially with these two teams, given that Oracle Park is a tremendous pitcher’s park and we all know what Yankee Stadium is.
But, as much as it’s worth obsessing about these two starters, a lot of early-season games end up being decided by the bullpens with starters still trying to build up their arms and pitch counts. On an annual basis, the Giants have one of the league’s stronger relief corps and it looks solid again, though experience in high-leverage is limited mostly to closer Ryan Walker and primary lefty setup man Erik Miller.
New York has more high-leverage arms and also several different multi-inning relief options to start the season, including Paul Blackburn and Ryan Yarborough, who may be rotation options if injuries pop up. Bullpens, especially individual relievers, tend to be volatile year-over-year, so it’s tough to take last season’s numbers and expect the same this season.
Yankees vs. Giants Prediction
After posting his worst results against left-handed batters last season since that 2020 COVID year, Webb seems to be tinkering with his arsenal a bit. It may be something, it may be nothing, but Webb’s Spring Training usage patterns showed more cutters and more changeups. He was also stellar in the WBC for Team USA with 11 strikeouts against one walk over 8.2 innings in two starts.
The Giants at a small plus-money price on Opening Day with their ace in a good spot to neutralize the Yankee bats and turn a lead over to the bullpen makes sense.
Pick: Giants +101
