ST. LOUIS (AP) — Lars Nootbaar homered and Sonny Gray pitched five solid innings to help the St. Louis Cardinals to a 5-3 win over the Minnesota Twins in their rain-delayed opener Thursday.
Nolan Arenado also went deep for the Cardinals late in the game. The first pitch was pushed back by 1 hour, 38 minutes.
Harrison Bader hit a two-run shot for Minnesota against his former team.
Nootbaar slammed a two-run drive off Pablo Lopez in the second inning to stake the Cardinals to a 4-0 lead.
Gray allowed two runs and four hits. He struck out six and threw 49 strikes in his 77-pitch outing. Gray pitched for the Twins from 2022-23.
The Cardinals' bullpen gave up just one run over four innings. Ryan Helsley earned the save.
Bader played parts of six seasons (2017-22) with the Cardinals. He homered off Gray in the fifth to cut it to 4-2.
Arenado, who turned down a trade to Houston in the offseason, took a curtain call for the sellout crowd after his home run in the eighth pushed the lead to 5-3.
St. Louis outfielder Victor Scott II saved two runs by tracking down a long drive off the bat of Ty France with two on and one out in the sixth. Scott made a backhand catch right in front of the warning track. The Cardinals were clinging to a 4-2 lead at the time.
Gray struggled mightily in spring training, going 0-3 with a 12.56 ERA in four starts. He gave up eight home runs in 14 1/3 innings. But he came out and set down the side in order in three of the first four innings Thursday.
Minnesota RHP Joe Ryan (7-7, 3.60 ERA last season) faces RHP Erick Fedde (9-9, 3.30) when the three-game series resumes Saturday afternoon.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Sonny Gray (54) pitches during the fourth inning of an opening-day baseball game against the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, March 27, 2025 in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Michael Thomas)
St. Louis Cardinals' Nolan Arenado (28) hits a solo home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Thursday, March 27, 2025, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Michael Thomas)
Wall Street followed global markets lower early Monday ahead of the Trump administration's latest tariff rollout later this week.
Futures for the S&P 500 sank 1.2%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.7%. Futures for the Nasdaq, where many of the biggest U.S. companies trade, tumbled 1.6%.
Tesla's woes continued as Elon Musk's electric car company slid 6.1%. Tesla is down 42% since Trump took office Jan. 20, with losses driven in part by the public perception of Musk's oversight of the new Department of Government Efficiency that’s slashing government spending.
Tesla sales in Europe are also down and the automaker's showrooms, vehicle lots, charging stations and privately owned cars in the U.S. have been targeted by vandals.
Apple shares were down less than 1% after France’s antitrust watchdog fined the tech giant $162 million over the rollout of a privacy feature resulted in abuse of competition law.
Shares of the mortgage company Rocket fell 3.5% after it announced that it is buying competitor Mr. Cooper in an all-stock deal valued at $9.4 billion. Mr. Cooper shares soared more than 26%. The deals comes just weeks after Rocket acquired real estate listing company Redfin.
The price of gold hit a record high before inching back down to $3,149 an ounce. Investors continue to pull out of equities in search of traditional safe havens like gold.
Markets worldwide have been anxious over a potentially toxic mix of worsening inflation and a slowing U.S. economy because households are afraid to spend due to the deepening trade war, escalated U.S. by President Donald Trump.
Trump has dubbed Wednesday “Liberation Day,” when he will roll out tariffs tailored to each of the United States’ trading partners that he promises will free the the country from foreign goods.
The details of Trump’s next round of import taxes are still sketchy. Most economic analyses say average U.S. families would have to absorb the cost of his tariffs in the form of higher prices and lower incomes. That has contributed to significant decline in U.S. consumer confidence this year, which has alarmed investors.
On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 2% for one of its worst days in the last two years. It was its fifth losing week in the last six, helping to drive the index down 5% this year. The Dow sank 1.7% and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.7% and is down more than 10% in 2025.
Many of the countries that run trade surpluses with the U.S. and depend heavily on export manufacturing are in Asia, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
“Asia is ground zero. Of the 21 countries under USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) scrutiny, nine are in Asia,” Innes noted.
Tokyo’s benchmark fell 4.1% to 35,617.56, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.3% to 23,119.58.
The Shanghai Composite index declined 0.5% to 3,335.75.
In South Korea, the Kospi fell 3% to 2,481.12, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 sank 1.7%, closing at 7,843.40.
Taiwan’s Taiex lost 4.2%.
European markets opened lower. Britain's FTSE 100 slid 1.4%, while France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX each fell 2%.
Thailand’s SET lost 1.3% after a powerful earthquake centered in Myanmar rattled the region, causing widespread destruction in the country, also known as Burma, and less damage in places like Bangkok.
Shares in Italian Thai Development, developer of a partially built 30-story high-rise office building under construction that collapsed, tumbled 27%. Thai officials said they are investigating the cause of the disaster, which left dozens of construction workers missing.
A currency trader walks by the screens showing the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, left, and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
The screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) are seen at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
An electronic stock board shows that Nikkei stock average dropped over 1,500 Japanese yen in Tokyo Monday, March 31, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
A currency trader works under an electronic stock board at a foreign currency trading firm in Tokyo Monday, March 31, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
