Five Things We Learned on Opening Day About The LA Angels

“A lotta people say” declared the great Harry Doyle, “you can tell how the season’s gonna go by the first hitter of the year.” For the LA Angels it may take a little longer to figure out.

So, what can we say about the LA Angels’ Opening Day?

First batters, first pitches, first games; human beings instinctively take every first has an omen for what’s to come. We just can’t help it. The future is a turbulent, uncertain ocean, and so we look for safe harbor in the certainty of the present. Here are the five things we learned on Opening Day:

Learned thing #1:  Same Ol’ Garrett Richards

This isn’t really something we learned so much as something we’ve been reminded of: Garrett Richards at his best is nigh-unhittable, but the Garrett Richards that shows up on most days has problems throwing strikes consistently from inning to inning, and from batter to batter. On Opening Day 2018, Richards was ineffectively wild, his slider wandering high and wide of the strike zone, without the usual sink that makes it such a devastating out pitch, especially with two strikes.

There were some positives. RIchards looks healthy, and that’s more important than anything else that we could expect. He threw 89 pitches in total, the most he’s thrown in one game since April 25, 2016, nearly two full years ago. His fastball sat comfortably in the mid-90s, and touched 97 with ease.

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In this game, unable to get swings and misses with his sinker, the opposing A’s were able to nickel-and-dime base hits off cheap and work counts on him — Oakland put at least one runner on base in each of his five innings. Richards was at the 50-pitch mark by just the third inning. Come the fifth inning, he couldn’t get Matt Joyce and Marcus Semien to bite on his stuff away. Working on Khris Davis with two outs and two on, he couldn’t get Davis to bite on a two-strike slider, and Davis hit the next pitch, a 97-MPH fastball, over the centerfield wall. Richards needs his slider to set up his fastball. He hadn’t been able to do that much in Spring Training, and he couldn’t do that today.

Learned thing #2:  Albert Pujols looked… not that bad

Albert Pujols has been beset by problems with his feet, his weight, and his age, and all those factors have helped people forget that he was at one point the greatest first baseman in National League history. Having spent most of the last two seasons at DH, Angel fans haven’t gotten to see much of the defensive prowess that won him a pair of Gold Gloves.

Pujols is slated to spend a lot more time at first base this season, and in his first game, he looked pretty good. In the first inning, with runners at the corners, Pujols handled a tricky hop along the first base line and threw a perfect strike to nail the runner coming down from third base. In the second inning, he showed good mobility going in to lis left to snag a sharp grounder that was just foul.

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He also looked pretty good at the plate as well, drilling a long home run in the top of the sixth to give the Angels a 5-4 lead they would not hold. However, his loss of speed is still painfully apparent. In the top of the 10th, Pujols hit a line drive into the left-centerfield gap, but only managed a single out of it. Kole Calhoun then followed with his third hit of the game, a single to left that would have put any reasonable big leaguer on third bas. Pujols stopped at second. Pujols’ lead feet is going to be a rally-stopper all season long, and Mike Scioscia is going to have to learn to be more aggressive in pinch-running for him in late-and-close situations.

Learned thing #3:  Zack Cozart is as advertised

New third baseman Zack Cozart didn’t play third base today. Ian Kinsler is still nursing some groin tightness, so instead of getting his first big league start at third base, Cozart got his first big league start at second base, and managed to start a 4-6-3 double play in the third inning, then laughed about it with Andrelton Simmons as they jogged off the field. More good things came around in the fifth inning, as Cozart took a first-pitch hanger and deposited his first hit as an Angel into the left field seats. Cozart started at the top of the lineup on Opening Day, but once Kinsler comes back, Cozart’s expected to bat down in the middle of the lineup. If you’re looking for good omens, a homer and a double in his first game with the Angels feels like a good one.

Learned thing # 5: Nothing

That’s right, we learned nothing. It’s one game, and just because it’s the first one doesn’t make it the magical harbinger of all things. Mike Trout is not going to go 0-6 every game. Justin Upton is not going to 0-5 and drop fly balls all the live long day. Did we learn anything about Shohei Ohtani in his first game? His first two balls in play, a single and grounder, came off his bat at 95 and 102 MPH. He also couldn’t square up at all — ground ball single and three groundouts to go along with a strikeout — so all we learned was what we already knew, that he’s got a quick bat.

If there’s anything that we did learn for sure today, it’s that the Angels are still a work in progress.Expectations do not change realities, they only change the way we accept them. Right now, expectations for this Angels squad are high, but it’s a group that still has to figure out who can and can’t work in the bullpen and in the rotation, and there’s the ever-present Ohtani question to have to deal with.

Next: How will the Angels bench fare?

However, patience is hard, and it’s especially hard when the games count. The Angels couldn’t iron out their kinks in Spring Training, and now they’re going to have to do it when it matters. The one thing we know for sure after Opening Day? The Angels are 0-1.