Opening Day 2017 arrived and the Chicago Cubs began their defense of the club's first World Series title in 108 years. St. Louis was the venue with former Cub Dexter Fowler batting leadoff as Jon Lester took the mound for another Opening Day start. It was a pitcher's duel with an odd play in which a white sign on the backstop obscured a groundball from Javier Baez's view and Yadier Molina became the first player in Major League Baseball history to be walked without having a single pitch thrown to him, per the new MLB intentional walk rules. The game nearly became a resumption of the magic of 2016 when Willson Contrearas popped a three-run homerun to tie the game in the 9th inning, but the Cardinals came storming back in a rainy finish to the game with a walkoff single.