Dugout Digest – Opening Day!

Welcome one and welcome all to our third MLB season at The Outside Corner! If you joined us over the offseason and have only seen the Dugout Digest as a link dump, things are a bit different during the regular season. The DD will serve as a nightly recap of the previous day's games, and also as a look ahead to the most compelling matchups in the current day's games. But before we get into the recap of last night, we've got some announcements to take care of…

First off, we'd like to welcome Ian Casselberry to the staff of TOC. Ian has a wealth of experience writing for a variety of sites across the web, including Yahoo!'s Big League Stew, SB Nation Detroit, and Bleacher Report, and he'll be churning out a couple of feature columns per week here at TOC. We're extremely excited to have Ian on the good ship TOC, and look forward to everyone reading his work going forward.

Secondly, we're going to be starting a newsletter at TOC in the vein of that of our sister site on the Bloguin network, Awful Announcing. Signups for the newsletter are open right now, and the first edition will likely end up going out sometime next week. Now, this newsletter isn't going to just be a link dump for The Outside Corner, but instead a link dump for a variety of baseball sites, collecting a selection of must-read columns, in-depth analysis, and must-watch videos once or twice a week. We're going to start up the newsletter on a one day per week basis and eventually expand it to two (and possibly three) days a week.

As an extra bonus to entice you to sign up for the newsletter, we'll be randomly giving away a $200 giftcard to our ticketing partners at Vivid Seats. The winning subscriber will be randomly selected once a player gets to 30 hits on the season, so essentially, sometime in April. Make sure to sign up, and potentially win the giftcard!

Now, let's get down to business with the DD.

Game of the Night: Astros 8, Rangers 2. The first game of the season is our Game of the Night by default, but the relatively anonymous Astros came out with a big win on Opening Night. In the fourth, Justin Maxwell tripled in the first two runs of the 2013 season against Rangers starter Matt Harrison. Houston would add two more in the fifth after Brandon Barnes scored on a two-base error by Texas right fielder Nelson Cruz, and Ronny Cedeno scored on a Jose Altuve single. Texas got on the board in the sixth against Astros starter Bud Norris after back to back RBI singles by David Murphy and Cruz, but the Astros responded with three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning courtesy of a three-run, pinch hit Rick Ankiel homer. Houston would finish off their scoring in the eighth after an infield single by Matt Dominguez brought home Maxwell, who reached base on his second triple of the game. Norris got the win, Harrison got the loss, and Erik Bedard got the save after allowing just one hit in 3 1/3 scoreless innings.

Hitting Lines of the Night: Well, Maxwell was the star of the show tonight, going 2/3 with two runs, two RBI, two triples, and a walk. Altuve also tacked on a pair of hits in four at bats with an RBI for the Astros, while Cruz went 2/3 with an RBI and a walk for the Rangers and Lance Berkman went 2/4 with a run scored

Pitching Lines of the Night: Norris was quietly effective for Houston, allowing two runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings, striking out five and walking three. Harrison had a solid enough game for the Rangers but got doomed by bad luck with balls in play, allowing six runs (five earned) in 5 2/3 of his own innings, walking three and striking out nine. Fun fact: Harrison's season-high in srikeouts during the 2012 season was seven.

Other Games: No other games on the docket on Opening Night, as per the norm.

Today's Games: Alright, here we go. Opening Day. Jon Lester and the Red Sox travel to the Bronx to take on CC Sabathia and the Yankees. James Shields makes his Royals debut against Chris Sale and the White Sox. Newly-inked Tigers ace Justin Verlander will battle Vance Worley of the Twins. Felix Hernandez and the Mariners travel to Oakland to take on Brett Anderson and the AL West champion Athletics. Our first Opening Day interleague battle pits Jered Weaver and the Angels against Johnny Cueto and the Reds. Ricky Nolasco and his gutted Marlins team will take on Stephen Strasburg and the NL East champion Nationals. Jon Niese (with his wife in tow) and the Mets take on the Padres. Jeff Samardzija and the Cubs take on AJ Burnett and the Pirates. Jhoulys Chacin gets the Opening Day nod for the Padres against Yovani Gallardo and the Brewers. The reigning World Champion Giants and reigning MVP (who is also newly-inked long-term) Buster Posey will start the year in Los Angeles, with Matt Cain dueling Clayton Kershaw. The mustachioed Cole Hamels and the Phillies will take on Tim Hudson and the Braves. Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals travel to Arizona to take on Ian Kennedy, Paul Goldschmidt (ALSO newly-inked), and the Diamondbacks.

Before getting into the games though, take a look at some prop bets that even Reno wouldn't take, ten players that are primed for a breakout year in 2013, and our staff's predictions for this season.

Welcome to Opening Day, and enjoy your day of baseball, everyone.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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