{"id":705920,"date":"2026-05-31T14:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/705920\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T14:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:06:18","slug":"the-opener-montgomery-tatis-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/705920\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opener: Montgomery, Tatis, Miles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles won 6-5 against the Blue Jays yesterday on a stunning five-run ninth inning comeback. Taylor Ward<\/a> made a small bit of history in the game, drawing his 51st walk of the season in the home half of the first. He\u2019s the first in Orioles franchise history to walk 51 times in the first 58 games of the season. With a .404 on-base percentage, Ward continues to be an on-base machine this year.<\/p>\n

1. Montgomery\u2019s homer pace<\/p>\n

White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery<\/a> hit career home run No. 35 in yesterday\u2019s 7-1 victory over the Tigers. The contest was Montgomery\u2019s 128th career game, making him the fastest in South Side history to reach 35 home runs. Jos\u00e9 Abreu<\/a> was the previous record holder, hitting 35 home runs in 133 games in his 2014 rookie season. As for Montgomery, the second-year shortstop continues to show impressive power with a .252 isolated slugging percentage.<\/p>\n

2. Tatis finally goes yard<\/p>\n

After a 55-game homerless streak to start 2026, Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a> finally went yard with a 451-foot blast against Foster Griffin<\/a> of the Nationals. Tatis has been mired in the worst offensive season of his career, with his drop in power being the most notable change. Tatis has improved on a dreadful April with a 119 wRC+ in May, so perhaps getting over the mental hurdle of hitting his first home run will help him return to the Tatis of old.<\/p>\n

3. Miles to start for Blue Jays today<\/p>\n

Per Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet<\/a>, the Blue Jays will give Spencer Miles<\/a> a traditional start today against the Orioles, in lieu of using an opener. Miles, a fourth-round draft pick by the Giants in 2022, is impressing with a 2.16 ERA in his first 15 big league appearances. Only one appearance, a three-inning, 38-pitch extended opener job on May 10th, counted as a start. Miles has averaged over four innings in three bulk relief appearances since then, so he should be good to go for 70-75 pitches today.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles won 6-5 against the Blue Jays yesterday on a stunning five-run ninth inning comeback. Taylor Ward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-705920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}