If Mother Nature cooperates, we will have Opening Day baseball for the Washington Nationals from Wrigley Field. Of course everyone back in the DMV will be scrambling to figure out how they will watch the game on their televisions with the new network configurations. Even people with Nationals.TV subscriptions want to watch on their big screen and not their computers, and if you have a Smart TV — you can get it to work. This is a test run beginning with the pre-game show at 1:30 PM in D.C., 12:30 PM in Chicago, and 10:30 AM on the Pacific Coast.
At some point, Opening Day of baseball should be a National Holiday! It is now the American pastime and if you watched the World Baseball Classic, the game is gaining popularity all over the world.
The morning kicks off soon with Paul Toboni’s appearance on 106.7 The Fan Sports Junkies with an interview at 9:00 AM in the DMV. Yes, I was listening to their show yesterday morning with a sliver of hope to hear some baseball talk since they had their baseball hockey expert, Grant Paulsen, on the show. But he called in to discuss what happens if Alexander Ovechkin decides to keep playing, and not retire, after the current Washington Capitals season. Then they ranked the popularity of each major sports team in the DMV next year if Ovechkin stays or if he retires. Paulsen had some positivity on the Nationals that they would be good again in either 2028 or 2029. And by the way, Paulsen has a show with Danny Rouhier on 106.7, and they talk a lot of Nats baseball.
In the afternoon, I switched to listen to the Chris Russell radio show on the 106.7 sister station on The Team 980 AM via my Audacy App. And he talked about the Nationals in a segment. If you want to hear good Nationals talk on the radio, that is the place to go. If he got a larger baseball audience, he would talk more Nats. Most of his callers want to discuss the Washington Commanders football team. The NFL Draft is less than a month away on April 23. But Chris always tries to force Nats discussions into his show. What was frustrating to hear last week is that Russell was trying to get some Nats on his show in call-ins from Spring Training — and the Nats didn’t make it happen. Again, this is grassroots in the way to grow the game.
If you flip over on Audacy to 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore, almost all of the talk is on their baseball team. Read their description: “Breaking news, analysis, interviews and commentary on the Ravens, Terps, and O’s. Look at the attached videos of Orioles segments.” The Ravens are winners in that town, yet they talk enough baseball to get a baseball audience to tune in. Good for them to understand that.
Back to the Nationals. They are running the gauntlet as the Nats have to go through the Cubs, Phillies, and Dodgers in their first three series of the 2026 season thanks to a cruel schedule to start the games that count. Obviously that would make the remaining 153 games of the season a little easier, right?
Yes, the baseball season is a marathon. You just want a quick start like Dusty Baker always liked to get the positive vibes and momentum going. This is a first Opening Day for Toboni and his manager, Blake Butera, and for 10 players who made the Opening Day roster, this is their first time to make it from Spring Training to Opening Day. Those 10 players include today’s Opening Day starting pitcher, Cade Cavalli, as well as Andres Chaparro, Andre Granillo, Cole Henry, Brady House, Daylen Lile, Drew Millas, PJ Poulin, Jorbit Vivas, and Joey Wiemer.
There were also some jersey number changes for two players who made the Opening Day roster. LHP Cionel Pérez has changed to number 51, and LHP Ken Waldichuk has changed to number 52. For now, Vivas is keeping his jersey number 84, Granillo keeps his 79, and Henry keeps his 99.
The Nats will be facing lefty Matthew Boyd in this game. Will that change Butera’s lineup to get in some more right-handed bats? We should see the lineup soon.
Photo by Owen Ranger/TalkNats
Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 2:20 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
