The Phillies won their first game at Citizens Bank Park Monday, 6-1 over the Rockies, signaling the official start of spring for a baseball hungry city. 

Kyle Schwarber went deep, helping to relieve an often sharp Cris Sánchez, who didn’t. The bullpen stood nearly as strong as Edmundo Sosa’s flexing biceps following a dramatic go-ahead double the shortstop hit in the seventh inning. 

We’ve got 158 of these to go, so let’s not waste any time. Here’s a look at the good, the bad and the ugly from the Phillies’ home opener:

The good

• Super utilityman Sosa — filling in for a mildly injured Trea Turner — was the (first) hero in this one, plating two with a ripped double in the seventh inning with the Phils trailing 1-0 and two outs. 

Not to be upstaged, one at bat later Kyle Schwarber broke open the game with his third homer of the year. He is on a tear to start the season and doesn’t look like he needs a torpedo bat (or maybe he’ll hit more homers if he uses one?).

Schwarber is a unicorn and the Phillies’ front office needs to pony up the dough to keep him in Philly before he hits free agency next fall.

Offense really does come in bunches for this team, and they tacked on two more insurance runs on a back to back homers from Kepler and Nick Castellanos later in the eighth.

• While they haven’t exactly opened the season against a murderer’s row of pitchers or teams, the Phillies have been mashing the baseball to start the year.

Through Monday morning, Philly had a 53.2% “hit hard” rate — the best in baseball. Of all the balls the put into play in Washington, more than half of them had an exit velocity faster than 95 mph. Even in Sunday’s 5-1 loss in the series finale, they had 12 outs made on 95 mph connections.

This continued back in Philadelphia Monday. Phils’ hitters hit the ball in play faster than 95 mph a total of 14 more times, including a ripped double from Kepler in the second inning (that did not lead to a run). Barrels continue to meet their designated target offensively. It could be a monster year if this keeps up.

• Make that a three hit day for Kepler, by the way, after he reached base four times in D.C. — an early look at what could be a pretty solid signing in right field. 

• If you’re among the many expecting to see starter Cris Sánchez break out this season, you liked what you saw in his first appearance of the year. The 28-year-old struck out seven and was pounding the upper 90s with his sinker. He also wiggled out of two big jams (one in the second and one in the fifth), without a blemish. He drew 15 swings and misses and allowed just one run on a homer in the sixth. 

Prior to the first pitch, Phils manager Rob Thomson spoke about the deception Sánchez can flash with his pitches.

“Well, you know, he’s now at a point where he’s got the combination of power and command,” Rob Thomson said Monday, “much like Wheeler. When you have that, you’re you’re in pretty good shape, and he’s got the swing and miss pitch with the change up, the slider’s really come along. He has the maturity it’s, you know, he’s he’s really grown.”

• On days when the starter doesn’t make it out of the sixth inning, the Phillies have to be pleased to hand it to a bullpen that thus far as been a bright spot. The pen kept the Rockies scoreless for their 3.2 innings Monday.

The bad

• Fans were sort of spoiled to start the year with the Phillies bursting out of the gate for 18 runs in their first two games. Over the marathon of a 162 game season every team will go through fits and starts offensively, but it always seems like this particular group of hitters is susceptible to being streaky and slumpy.

Look no further than their series against the Mets last October, when they followed up a prolific 95-win regular season with five total runs in their three NLDS losses (they came together for just one win in the series, a seven-run Game 2 explosion). One of the keys for this team when they’re at the plate will be finding some kind of consistency, or a groove where everyone isn’t struggling at the same time. 

• The Phillies’ big lefty starter, Sánchez, still showed room for improvement despite after tossing five scoreless innings. Nearing 90 pitches, Thomson decided to leave him in the game to start the sixth, when he gave up a solo shot to Hunter Goodman, who gave Colorado a 1-0 lead. The Phillies are a team designed to succeed when the starters are able to go deep into games. For some contrast, Germán Márquez only needed 68 pitches to get through his five. 

Do you blame Sánchez for giving up the homer or his manager for pushing him a bit too hard in the early going?

• The Phillies have the second best walk rate in baseball (14.1%) as they were promisingly patient in their opening series. So of course when they returned home they walked exactly one time — a Turner free pass for the pinch hitting shortstop as he recovers from back spasms this past weekend.

• Harper tried to stretch a double in the eighth inning but got caught being a bit too aggressive. If he’s safe, it’s a laudable. But he wasn’t. Luckily, the Phillies were up by three when he made the blunder.

The (nothing is yet) ugly

• It’s the home opener — so we are going to reject the premise of the ugly section today. The start of a season brings with it potential and optimism. The weather was sparkling, sunny and warm, in stark contrast to recent home openers that had fans and players contending with rain and mist and cold and wind (all of those could return this weekend by the way). 

The Phillies are not only a contender, but they’re an extremely lovable baseball team and we’re living in one of the three or four best eras of baseball in the history of this city. Enjoy the summer — the good, the bad, the ugly… all of it.

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