2026 Opening Day brought a lot of great memories to some new big leaguers and other ball players playing on new teams for the very first time. One of those players is Seattle Mariners' second baseman, Brendan Donovan.
Donovan made history with his first-ever at-bat as he became the first in franchise history to hit a leadoff homer on Opening Day. It seems like he will be a great leadoff hitter for this team.
Donovan talked about his big night in an article by Daniel Kramer for MLB.com.
“In a hitter's count, I think that's the time to take your shot,” Donovan said when asked about that first at-bat. “So I liked the matchup. Like I said, I liked the count. I feel like I had taken a couple of pitches to get to that count, and I thought I saw him pretty good. That's a big part of my routine, and so I was like, ‘Let's take a shot here.’”
Donovan and his hitting coach, Kevin Seitzer, have been talking about the quality of good at-bats.
“It's not even about results,” Donovan said. “Like Seitzer and I have been talking about, he keeps track of all the quality at-bats, and he puts a dot next to quality of at-bats. And our goal is just to chase as many dots as possible.”
The Mariners and Cleveland Guardians are back at it for Game 2 of the series tonight. George Kirby will start for the Mariners, and then Gavin Williams will toe the slab for the Guardians. Seattle is aiming for its first win after losing on Opening Day. Cal Raleigh almost used the first ABS challenge of the season, but ended up not in the loss.
