on your mark …

From a Mississippi perspective, there is much to absorb today on Opening Day Take 2 of the 2020 season. Brandon Woodruff goes to the bump for Milwaukee, while Lance Lynn starts for Texas in the first game at Globe Life Field. Former Mississippi Braves Mike Soroka (Atlanta) and Charlie Morton (Tampa Bay) also drew Game 1 assignments. Austin Riley makes his first Opening Day appearance for the Braves, starting at third base. Faces in new places include Corey Dickerson with Miami, Jarrod Dyson in Pittsburgh, Hunter Renfroe in Tampa Bay, Kendall Graveman with Seattle, Mike Mayers with the Los Angeles Angels and Drew Pomeranz in San Diego, where the peripatetic lefty actually has been before. Anthony Alford and Jacob Waguespack made the roster for the team with no home, the Toronto Blue Jays. Billy Hamilton is now with San Francisco and Brian Dozier with the New York Mets (as of Wednesday), but neither made the Game 1 roster. Bobby Wahl, who made Milwaukee’s roster, was in the team’s system in 2019 but down most of the year with an injury, so he has yet to make his Brewers debut. Cody Reed, who made just three big league appearances in 2019, is on Cincinnati’s 30-man roster. Cody Carroll, who didn’t get an MLB look in an injury-marred 2019, made Baltimore’s roster. Perhaps no player appreciates being back in a big league unie more than Graveman, the former Mississippi State star who last pitched in the majors more than two years ago. He said in a recent mlb.com piece that he’ll likely get emotional when he makes his first start next week. He also said he’ll miss the crowds: “To me, that interaction with a fan on a daily basis, giving a ball to a 10-year-old kid at his first game or whatever it may be, kids are going to remember that. That’s the thing I’ll miss the most. And the electricity the fans bring. So it’ll be different.” Yes, it will — in many ways.