[Baseball] Game Notes - New York Yankees at Washington Nationals, 7/23/20 - Opening Day

​We learned tonight what a baseball game is like without any fans, but with pumped-in fan noise. My opinion? Weird, very weird. It felt to me, watching on television, like an envelope of silence, a blanket of quiet.

The game featured a match-up of aces, Gerrit Cole vs. Max Scherzer. Watching these two right-handers gives you the feeling that they are always in command. That if you asked them to throw a curveball into a thimble, they could--somehow--do it, maybe on the second try. They both work quickly, with a master craftsman's efficiency, combined with an intense focus on executing strikes with great, high velocity, trickily moving, stuff. 

Watching these two pitch, they make you feel like when things go wrong, it's a complete fluke, as if it is incomprehensible that batters reach base in the face of their 99-MPH fastballs and 10-inch sliders.

The Yankees scored four runs against Scherzer tonight, for example, and even though I watched every inning, I am still not sure how Scherzer allowed that to happen. Maybe he was only half-trying. He also may not yet be in mid-season form.

Cole had the better night, but it's fun to watch two master craftsmen going head-to-head. 

The game was delayed by rain and lightning, which seemed appropriate for the crazy year known as 2020 in America.

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If one game is any indication (which it isn't), the Yankee offense can carry them to the playoffs this year. The question will be the quality of their starting pitching outside of Cole.

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