(Probable) MLB Fan Message Boards After One Week

One week into the 162-game MLB season, there are storylines and overreactions galore.

When was the last time you thought about torpedo bats? That was the biggest storyline that took over baseball for the first week after the Yankees beat the Brewers using 100% legal bats that looked like bowling pins.

The Brewers were swept, and the Yankees outscored them 36-14, which included a 9-home run, 20-point outing. We left the Brewers for dead- the small market team that parts ways with their stars had finally bit the dust!

They went on to have the best record in baseball the rest of the year, and you’ve never talked about a torpedo bat being a way to cheat the game ever since.

Baseball is so localized that the sky is already falling or the Roman Empire has been built following a hot start after the first week of games for fanbases. 

The new look San Francisco Giants just got swept to start the year. A fan posted that they refused to spend on Framber Valdez in free agency and were now “stuck with Logan Webb” as the 1, which he found and promptly replied to, “Unfortunate!”

Many baseball fans live in their bubble in a crazed local space, similar to how college fan bases’ message board posts ask for coach firings and for the NIL donors to open up their wallets and step up to the plate, if you will. The difference with baseball is that we get those reactions over the span of a behemoth-lengthened season.

Let’s step into the mind of some fan bases with some (probable) message board posts in response to the first week of games and determine if it’s a warranted or unwarranted reaction. 

Welcome to the baseball message board. After one week.

Philadelphia Phillies

• Lost the opening series to the Rangers
• Fans booed Bryce Harper for the first time
• Jhoan Duran threw a wild pitch to allow a game-winning run in extras
• Lit up by former Met Brandon Nimmo and former Phillie Andrew McCutchen
• 4th-worst average in baseball
• Taijuan Walker was crushed by the Washington Nationals at home

@FueledByWawaAndTushPushes: “Maybe Dombrowski was right about this bum Harper not being elite after all? I already miss that jawn Castellanos, and he brought beer into the clubhouse. Maybe I can use it to drink on any start not started by Christopher Sanchez if we’re gonna get annihilated by old man Andrew McCutchen.”

VERDICT: UNWARRANTED (For now)

There is arguably no bigger angry melting pot than Philadelphia. The Phillies got off to a rough offensive start against one of the best pitching staffs in baseball. It’s early; one of them was a close loss that would have given them the series win, and when Schwarbombs go out, the team’s emotional energy is just different. You WANT Bryce Harper to play with a chip on his shoulder, not apathy. However, if this noise keeps up for the duration of the year, Philly is just as combustible and affected by negative energy as an older team that’s been through the wringer.

Arizona Diamondbacks

• Swept by the Dodgers with 3 blown leads
• Not a single lefty arm in the bullpen after they had the 2nd-worst save percentage in baseball last year
• Worst position unit in baseball since 2025

@DryHeatHanksSnakes: “It doesn’t matter if you’re going against the billionaire boys club when you have a gaping flesh wound of a bullpen and decide, ‘Eh, let’s just let it keep bleeding! #HAZENOUT”

VERDICT: WARRANTED

Snakes fans have absolutely every right to feel upset about the team. In the last two seasons, they’ve missed the postseason following their World Series appearance, despite having a top-5 offense in baseball, with Eugenio Suarez hitting 50 home runs before they had to sell him off.

Well, this year, there is no Geno to bail them out, and when you have the opportunity to get two wins against the Dodgers to open the year and get none because of a tale as old as time, the front office has no one to blame but themselves for continuing to fail to get pitching year after year. Can Geraldo Perdomo sling it?

Miami Marlins

• Finally wore the right uniforms (the teal throwbacks)
• 3-0 for the first time since 2009 with a walk-off home run to beat the Rockies
• Eury Perez and Sandy Alcantara 2-0 with 15 combined total K’s
• Owen Caissie, the prospect traded for Edward Cabrera, 5-10 with the walk-off homer

@HomeRunSculptureMournerMike: “Remember that team with Dan Uggla’s forearms and Hanley Ramirez? This team might be more fun than that. The fightin’ fish are thinking NL EAST!”

VERDICT: WARRANTED

Marlins fans (at least, the ones we think exist. Ignore the pictures of the horrid crowd turnouts at the stadium) have every right to be excited about this team. One could say, well, it’s the Marlins, and the small market-minded team is inevitably going to sell or mess it up somehow at the hands of the dominant Braves, Mets, and Phillies, but something genuinely felt different here. They’ve lost and sold off enough that they have a core built of a lineup all under 28. Eury and Sandy could be the best 1-2 punch in baseball when they’re both healthy, and Kyle Stowers is on the shelf with an injury, but was an All-Star outfielding bat last year. They’re so young and hungry that we don’t really know what the ceiling of this team can be when everything is clicking. Get excited in South Beach!

Pittsburgh Pirates

• Didn’t get one inning out of Paul Skenes in his debut after he gave up 5 earned runs
• Allowed a walk-off home run to Luis Robert Jr.
• Have to put out social media notices that O’Neill Cruz is “wearing sunglasses” because the defense is so bad

@NotSoJollyRoger: “Well, if it isn’t just our luck that the day we actually DO get run support for Skenes, Captain America himself can’t get out of the first inning. But, hey, it’s a good thing they let us know we were INTERESTED in Schwarber and Naylor this offseason. SELL THE TEAM, BOB!”

VERDICT: NOT WARRANTED

The entirety of Team USA from the WBC that returned virtually had a tough go this opening week, but none more than Paul Skenes, who finally got some run support with a Brandon Lowe homer in the first inning. Buster Olney tweeted that the playoff run started with that homer. Then O’Neill Cruz lost two routine fly balls and they lost 11-7 and eventually the series to the Mets.

That sort of embarrassment is warranted for a team that has been a laughing stock with their ownership situation, and this “finally” being the year that they take the Cy Young Award-winning pitcher to the postseason to play meaningful baseball in their glorious ballpark. But Skenes is too consistent a pitcher for you to worry, and even if he does need time to get back in the swing of things, Ryan O’Hearn and Brandon Lowe look like two of the smartest pickups of the offseason, so maybe the offense won’t be historically bad this time!

We’ve also yet to see Bubba Chandler, Mitch Keller threw some shutout ball, and Gregory Soto and Mason Montgomery were filthy in the bullpen. Nutting should still sell the team, yes, but not due to this start to the year.

Toronto Blue Jays

• Swept the A’s and struck them out 50 times
• Gausman, Lauer, and Cease all had over 9 strikeouts
• Homer from Kazuma Okamoto in the debut series

@WhoIzYourVladdy: “REVENGE TIME BABY, EH?”

VERDICT: WARRANTED

Despite the loss of Bo Bichette, the Blue Jays were still going for it this offseason, bringing in Dylan Cease, signing Okamoto and Cody Ponce, and even bringing back Max Scherzer. They were primed to be a candidate to get back to the World Series, but there were massive concerns about the pitching staff and overall poor injury luck to start the year, losing Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber, Jose Berrios, Yimi Garcia, and Bowden Francis. Were they going to seriously have to rely upon serious innings from 41-year-old Max Scherzer? There’s no chance they can go back after losing that much pitching.

And then they proved everyone wrong in this series. Gausman looks back, Eric Lauer was a stud, and Cease looked worth every penny. It may have been against the A’s, but for them to have that level of quality pitching from their starters before their reinforcements, as well as having the smartest-hitting lineup in baseball that slugs from the top down, rarely if ever strikes out, and puts the ball in play, the Blue Jays never left their place in the AL hierarchy.

Boston Red Sox

• Lost the opening series to the Reds
• 6 CB Bucknor calls overturned that resulted in the losses from ABS
• New signing Ranger Suarez crushed by the Astros
• New Acquisitions Caleb Durbin and Willson Contreras have 1 combined hit through the first four games

@AnythingButSweetCaroline: “So we gotta beat the Reds, the stripes, AND the robots now, huh? That loozah CB Bucknor someone still had better vision that Drake Maye behind Will Campbell this year. It’s still the Sox versus everybody.”

VERDICT: WARRANTED

The Sox have every right to be upset with the new state of the game with ABS. It’s the new normal, unfortunately, and if a different set of eyes were behind the plate, they likely wouldn’t have had a 3-game slide and could easily have been at the top of the AL East with 2 of those losses to the Reds being by one run.

The following night against the Astros, Suarez put up a dud and allowed a Yordan tank and vintage Jose Altuve, and the top 4 of the lineup went a combined 1-15; it’s been Wilyer Abreu or nothing from an offensive standpoint. You’re still not panicking if you’re Boston, though. You’re going to get a quality start from Crochet every 5 days to right the ship, and they could STILL be 3-1 with an abhorrent offensive output so far against a Reds pitching staff that was nails. We’ve seen Cora-led Red Sox teams need some time to find their footing in the past, and this is no different.

The American League Central

“@MotorCityKittyMike: My rookie is better than yours.

@ClevelandThisIs4U: No, my rookie is better than yours.

@TheBigHurtFeelings: No, my rookie is better than yours.

@PasquatchHunter: No, MY rookie is better than yours.

@MinneapolisMiraclePlz: …I still believe in Luke Keaschall.”

The AL Central has become a choose-your-own-favorite-flavor of electrifying rookies. Kevin McGonigle in Detroit has the 5-tool capabilities and electrifying sprint speed, working deep counts, and got a 4-hit day in his debut. Guardian Chase DeLauter had 4 homers in the opening series against the M’s off of elite pitchers in Kirby, Gilbert, and Munoz, and his swing looks like it comes effortlessly.

Munetaka Murakami is in a little different situation as a “rookie,” as a 26-year-old from Japan, but the gamble on his bat paid off for the Sox, and he’s got 3 homers to start the year already. Royals’ top prospect Carter Jensen is an all-around catcher who could not have been a better addition for Salvy to pass the torch off to, and the local boy has struggled, but at least he has a homer under his belt. The Twins, meanwhile, after their fire sale from last year, are still waiting on Luke Keaschall to take off if the year may be as long as we think it may be.