NEW YORK — The Yankees and Red Sox will have to wait an extra day to renew their pleasantries.
A rainy weather forecast caused the Yankees to officially announce that their opening-day game against Boston has been pushed to Friday. Originally scheduled for Thursday, the rescheduling means that the teams will lose the off day that was supposed to be on Friday. Weather permitting, they will now play three straight games from Friday to Sunday.
The rescheduled game will be played at 1:05 p.m. on Friday at Yankee Stadium, with fans who had a ticket for Thursday still being able to use them for entrance on Friday. They may also exchange them for a similar regular-season game through the Yankees’ rain check policy. Gates will open at 11:00 a.m. with traditional opening-day ceremonies beginning at approximately 12:30 p.m.
As of now, the plan is for the Yankees to start Gerrit Cole against the Red Sox’s Nathan Eovaldi, creating a rematch of last season’s American League wild-card game that ended in disaster for the Yankees.
Friday will be the 28th time the Yankees and Red Sox meet on opening day, and the 31st if you count the days when the Red Sox were known as the Boston Americans. Cole will make his third consecutive opening-day start, as he’s also taken the ball for the Yankees’ first game in each of his first two seasons with the team.
While Cole is becoming a familiar sight, the Yankees will introduce some new faces during Friday’s pregame ceremonies. Most notably, Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa make up a completely revamped left side of the infield after coming over from Minnesota in a trade for Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela.
Along with Sanchez and Urshela, Luke Voit (traded to San Diego), Tyler Wade (designated for assignment and later traded to the Angels), and Brett Gardner (still unsigned) are other recent mainstays who will be absent for the first time in years. Injuries to Zack Britton and Domingo German will keep both pitchers off the active roster too, with each of them set to miss significant time. Britton underwent Tommy John surgery in September and German is on the 60-day injured list with a shoulder malady.
With the relievers — German has started 56 games for the Yankees but looked primed for a bullpen role this year — on the shelf, plus the expanded rosters to accommodate for this year’s shortened spring training, three rookies will begin the season in the majors. Two of them (Ron Marinaccio and JP Sears) will be making their MLB debut whenever they see their first game action. The other, Clarke Schmidt, has seen limited action in The Show already and has been dreamt about by many Yankee fans since the club took him with the 17th overall pick in the 2017 draft.
Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa should be the only brand new faces in the opening-day starting lineup, with Anthony Rizzo and Aaron Hicks making their returns after re-signing in free agency and recovering from injury, respectively. The other newbies who could play fairly large roles this season are ex-Astro Marwin Gonzalez and young catcher Ben Rortvedt. Gonzalez made the team after slashing .364/.391/.818 in his first spring training with the Yankees. The switch-hitting utility man and 2017 World Series champion signed a one-year deal worth $1.15 million on March 21, giving him less than three weeks between joining the Yankees and making their opening-day roster.
A strained oblique in camp sent Rortvedt into a world of uncertainty, and the Yankees adding backup catcher Jose Trevino complicates Rortvedt’s status even more, but it’s certainly not out of the question for him to eventually catch some innings in the majors this year, even if he has to start the year rehabbing in Triple-A.
