It was a grand opening the Cubs will certainly never forget, and the Athletics would probably like to.

The first MLB game in Sacramento ended with the score Cubs 18, A’s 3, with the Cubs pounding out 21 hits, including three home runs, and drawing 10 walks. And catcher Carson Kelly became the first Cub to hit for the cycle in almost 32 years, since Mark Grace did it May 9, 1993, and is the first player to cycle in the 2025 season. Kelly is also, FWIW, the first player ever to cycle in March.

I’ll get to all that, but let’s begin at the beginning, and the Cubs did not waste any time getting on the board.

Ian Happ led off the game with a walk and Kyle Tucker doubled him to third. Seiya Suzuki scored Happ with this sacrifice fly [VIDEO].

The next hitter was Michael Busch. Boom! It’s 3-0 Cubs [VIDEO].

The very next pitch was to Dansby Swanson. And just like that, it’s 4-0 [VIDEO].

So that’s an auspicious beginning, three extra-base hits in the first inning.

Ben Brown threw well through the first two innings, then got touched up for a solo homer in the third to make it 4-1. The Cubs got that run right back in the top of the fourth when Kelly homered, his first as a Cub [VIDEO].

The A’s pushed across a pair in the bottom of the fourth to make it closer at 5-3, but then the Cubs blew the game open in the top of the fifth.

Nico Hoerner led off with a single and after Mitch Spence replaced A’s starter Joey Estes, Pete Crow-Armstrong doubled Nico to third. Matt Shaw walked to load the bases.

Kelly singled in two runs to make it 7-3 [VIDEO].

From BCB’s JohnW53:

Before Kelly’s two-run single in the fifth inning, the Cubs had scored their last 14 runs, over three games, on eight home runs and a sacrifice fly:

two-run homer by Tuckersolo homer by Shawsolo homer by Swansontwo-run homer by Suzukithree-run homer by Tuckersac fly by Suzukitwo-run homer by Buschsolo homer by Swanson

solo homer by Kelly

The Cubs were far from done in that inning, though. After Ian Happ struck out, Tucker put a ball in play [VIDEO].

PCA would have scored even if the out had been made at second, so Tucker gets an RBI on the play, and runners are now on second and third and it’s 8-3.

After Suzuki struck out, Busch singled in both runners to make the score 10-3 [VIDEO].

Brown completed the fifth inning without further incident. It wasn’t a great stat line for him, three runs on six hits, but with just 75 pitches thrown and five strikeouts, which you can see here [VIDEO].

The Cubs weren’t satisfied with a five-run fifth, so they went about putting together a six-run sixth. Kelly doubled with one out. This gave him a single, double and home run, and that’s a fairly common “triple shy of the cycle” night. The Marquee folks looked up how many Cubs had done that since Grace’s cycle in 1993, and there have been 261 of them (263 including postseason). Here are those 261 games (ignore the last one, as it’s from a date in 1993 before Grace’s cycle).

More on that from BCB’s JohnW53:

Between Mark Grace’s cycle on May 9, 1993, and Carson Kelly’s last night, the Cubs had played 5,156 games. In 343 of them, a batter missed a cycle by one type of hit: 261 lacked a triple; 47, a homer; 29, a double; and six, a single.

Back to the game: After Happ was called out on strikes, a double by Tucker scored Kelly, so it’s now 11-3 [VIDEO].

Suzuki then walked and Busch was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Swanson then doubled, scoring Tucker and Suzuki to make it 13-3 [VIDEO].

Hoerner’s single made it 14-3 [VIDEO].

After another A’s pitching change, PCA singled in Swanson, now it’s 15-3 [VIDEO].

Shaw then hit a ground ball that should have been an inning-ending force play, but PCA beat the relay to second [VIDEO].

The call was overturned on review, and this is yet another example of how PCA creates chaos on the field. That’s usually a routine force play, but PCA’s speed changed that result. Defenses are going to have to change the way they look at the Cubs when PCA is on the basepaths.

So the bases are loaded, and Kelly is up, needing a triple for the cycle. Instead, he drew this RBI walk [VIDEO].

So it’s 16-3 heading to the last of the sixth. Julian Merryweather, apparently fine after “not responding well” following multiple warmups without getting into a game in Arizona, threw a 1-2-3 sixth on only seven pitches.

The only drama remaining was whether Kelly would come to the plate again, which he did in the top of the eighth. With two out, Shaw walked and Kelly … got his triple! [VIDEO]

That’s a piece of video I’ll treasure forever. Look at Kelly huff and puff as he goes for third base. He knew exactly what was going on. Congratulations to Kelly on the first Cubs cycle in 32 years, and the second ever by a Cubs catcher. I will have a full article on all the Cubs cycles through history coming up at 10 a.m. CT.

Beyond the cycle, that was the first triple by ANY Cubs hitter this year, and with guys like Shaw, Hoerner and PCA on this team, you would not have predicted Carson Kelly would hit the first Cubs triple of 2025. It was just the third triple of Kelly’s career, in 559 games and 1,815 plate appearances. He hit one in 2021 with the Diamondbacks and one last year with the Tigers.

Oh, yes, Shaw scored on that triple to make it 17-3.

Craig Counsell had emptied his bench, with Jon Berti and Gage Workman getting some playing time, and Suzuki moving from DH to left field to give Hoerner, Swanson and Happ some time off, and that put Colin Rea in the batting order; he would strike out as a batter in the ninth. Rea entered the game to throw the seventh inning and finished the game, throwing three shutout innings and 40 pitches, helping save the bullpen for the rest of the series.

Tucker completed the scoring with a solo homer in the ninth [VIDEO].

That one was off position player Jhonny Pereda, but it counts all the same, Tucker’s third of the young season. He had four hits, four runs scored and three RBI on the night and now has an OPS of 1.142. Busch and Hoerner also had three hits on the night, and of course Kelly had four with his cycle, and he has a season OPS of 1.715.

The Cubs could have had more runs, too; they left 15 (!) runners on base.

Here’s Kelly on his cycle [VIDEO].

This game had great entertainment value, at least for Cubs fans, and also featured a drone delay [VIDEO].

And a couple more facts from BCB’s JohnW53:

This was just the 10th regular-season game that the Cubs have played vs. the Athletics on the road. It is the third of the last four in which the Cubs scored in double digits: 10-1, 4-0 and 12-2 in 2023, then 18-3 tonight. The Cubs’ most runs in any of their 12 games vs. the A’s at home came in a 10-1 win in 2019.

The Cubs’ 18 runs are their most ever vs. an AL team. Previous high was in a 17-0 win at Cleveland on June 17, 2015.

And so…

The 15-run victory margin wiped out the Cubs’ entire negative run differential for the young season. They entered the game at -12 (25 runs scored, 37 allowed), and now they are +3 (43 runs scored, 40 allowed). And one more fun fact:

#Cubs 9 spot in batting order in 7 games this season:.423/.483/.731

3 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR, 10 RBI

— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) April 1, 2025

(That’s three games for Berti in the 9 spot, two for Kelly and two for Miguel Amaya.)

The Cubs will go for two in a row over the A’s Tuesday evening in Sacramento. It will certainly not be as easy, as Luis Severino gets the start for the A’s. Justin Steele will try to right his ship after two rough outings so far. Game time is again 9:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.