Opening Day arrived the way it always does — with second-breakfast optimism, freshly chalked lines, and the cheerful delusion that everyone you need will be healthy when it counts. By sundown on April 7, that delusion had taken several direct hits.
The worst of the Opening Day news belongs to the Weathertop Witch Kings, who lose Andy van Cleave to a torn labrum. Eight months. Season-ending. Van Cleave had gone 9-10 with a 3.66 ERA in 2052, the kind of rotation anchor who doesn't dazzle but quietly makes everything around him function, and now he's gone before he threw a meaningful pitch in 2053. Mind you, Weathertop also loses reliever Rudolph Bramblebush — torn labrum, eleven months — though Bramblebush was carrying a 6.23 ERA in AAA and was not, let us be honest, the load-bearing wall. Still: two men to the injured list on Opening Day is cold mutton by any measure.
In the Troll Division's other Mordor Conference shop, the Grey Havens Stars are managing the short-term but genuinely worrying news about Myronthilar Thrilmang — 23 years old, 4.3 WAR, .263 with 22 home runs in 2052, and now out 6-7 weeks with a fractured finger he suffered running the bases. Thrilmang is labelled elite for a reason. He's the kind of player you build a lineup around, and the Stars will need to find something — anyone — to approximate his production while that finger knits back together.
Up in the Goblin Division, the Lothlorien Lumberjacks announced a setback for center fielder Nudzud Brainstomper, who will miss an additional week. It is short-term, and MESN has noted and is choosing not to investigate further.
Across the leagues, the SciFi world's Tatooine Sandcrawlers lose Anakin "Lord" *Skywalker — shortstop, 28, 5.6 WAR, about as close to irreplaceable as the position gets — to a strained hamstring, five weeks. The Sandcrawlers caught a break compared to initial fears, but five weeks without their best player is still five weeks.
I'll say this much: whoever scheduled all four of these for Opening Day has a great deal to answer for.