A look at what's happening around the majors today:
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REMARKABLE ROOKIE
Guardians newcomer Steven Kwan has quickly become the biggest story in baseball after a sensational start in a season-opening series at Kansas City.
The 24-year-old rookie is the first player in major league history to reach base at least three times in each of his first four games. Kwan hit a bases-loaded triple and walked twice Monday in a 10-7 win over the Royals.
Kwan, who made his debut opening day, is 9 for 13 at the plate and has reached base in 15 of 19 plate appearances. That's the most times any player has safely reached in his first four games since 1901.
“Pretty cool,” Kwan said in his typical understated manner. “Pretty surreal.”
Kwan was Cleveland's fifth-round draft pick in 2018. He's a contact hitter — he's swung 26 times so far this season and gotten a piece of the ball every time, according to Statcast.
Kwan had the lowest swing-and-miss rate in the minors last year among players with at least 300 plate appearances at 2.6%.
Cleveland opens a series at Cincinnati, with Tyler Mahle starting for the Reds. He won on opening day, holding the World Series champion Braves to no earned runs in five innings at Atlanta.
Shane Bieber pitches for the Guardians. In his first start, he allowed one earned run in 4 2/3 innings at Kansas City.
SEEING DOUBLE
Giants reliever Tyler Rogers and his twin brother, Padres reliever Taylor Rogers, spent a few minutes chatting with big grins behind the batting cage Monday afternoon as their teams prepared for a three-game series in San Francisco.
Later, they headed to home plate and exchanged the lineup cards for their managers before posing for photos with the umpire crew.
What fun for these two now playing in the same division on rival clubs.
“Probably if you put them in the same uniform you couldn’t tell them apart,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “I know it’s a special day for both of them being able to be on the field together. There’s twins and then there’s twins, and that is a difficult one to tell apart.”
Both pitched in relief Monday night and played a significant role in the outcome, too. Taylor Rogers earned his third save and Tyler took the loss in San Diego's 4-2 victory over the Giants.
Yu Darvish starts for the Padres on Tuesday night. In his season debut last week at Arizona, he had a no-hitter in progress but was pulled following the sixth inning after throwing 92 pitches.
DOUBLE DEBUT
Tampa Bay right-hander Tommy Romero and Oakland righty Adam Oller will both be making their major league debuts when they pitch against each other at Tropicana Field.
It will be the 28th time since Baseball Reference data is available since 1901 that two starting pitchers are making their big league debuts in the same game.
Neither the Athletics nor Rays have been involved in such a game.
The most recent occurrences came in 2020 when Washington’s Wil Crowe faced Miami’s Sixto Sánchez on Aug. 22 at Nationals Park and Detroit’s Casey Mize and Dane Dunning of the White Sox met Aug. 19 in Chicago.
WELCOME BACK
Martin Perez spent his first seven big league seasons with the Texas Rangers. The lefty is back after three years away.
Perez makes his return to the mound for the Rangers to wrap up a two-game set against Colorado, with right-hander Chad Kuhl pitching for the first time with the Rockies.
Texas initially signed Perez as a 16-year-old international free agent out of Venezuela in July 2007, and he made his big league debut in 2012. After going 43-49 in 141 games over seven years with the Rangers, Perez went to Minnesota in free agency for the 2019 season and then pitched for Boston the past two years.
Kuhl signed as a free agent last month after pitching in 100 games (84 starts) for Pittsburgh in his first five big league seasons. He was 5-7 with a 4.82 ERA in 28 games (14 starts) for the Pirates last year.
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