Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning you’ll get a fresh, topical column to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
An epidemic put Corey Seager and Joey Votto on the injured list. It caused Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Shohei Ohtani to leave games or miss time. It has made baseball today more dangerous for hitters than any other time in the past 120 years. The epidemic is the hit by pitch, and there is no sign of it slowing.
Another 45 batters were hit in the 46 games played over the weekend, including Seager.