Verlander makes his 11th career opening day start, tying him for the active lead. Photo via sporting News.
Every year I update this long-running XLS for this increasingly anachronistic relic of tracking Opening Day Starter honors for teams. But it does make for some good trivia questions.
After this year’s opening day (including the two-day series in Japan), here’s some interesting stats related to Opening Day Starts from around the league:
- Most Opening Day Starts, Active Leaders:
- Justin Verlander makes his 11th and he seems well suited to increase that total given current form and new contract.
- 11 ties him with both CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez for the most active, neither of whom seem like they’ll get another shot to extend their totals.
- Next closest are three tied with 8 each: Jon Lester, Clayton Kershaw and James Shields. Lester’s is active, Kershaw’s should continue, while Shields remains unsigned for 2019 and seems unlikely to get another shot.
- Current Leading Consecutive streak:
- Julio Teheran with 6, which is pretty amazing because there was talk of him not even making the team with all the pitching depth Atlanta has.
- Next closest is Corey Kluber with 5.
- Nobody else really is close. Lester has 3 straight for the Cubs, to add to his total of 8 between Boston and Chicago.
- Consecutive streaks ended in 2019:
- Felix Hernandez has his streak of 10 starts broken, and he wasn’t happy about it.
- Kershaw had his streak of 8 broken thanks to the spring training injury.
- Chris Archer has his streak of 4 broken thanks to a mid-season 2018 trade.
- Number of first-time Opening Day Starters in 2019: 14.
- deGrom, Castillo, Taillon, Mikolas, Freeland, Ryu, Lauer, Snell, Rodon, Keller, Berrios, Fiers, Gonzales, Minor
- I’d say half of these are rewards for excellent 2018 seasons (deGrom, Taillon, Mikolas, Freelan, Snell for sure, perhaps also Berrios), some are covering for obvious candidates who are injured (Ryu), while the rest mostly play for tanking teams who have little better choice than to name a starter for opening day (Castillo, Lauer, Rodon, Keller, Fiers, Gonzales and Minor).
- This is the highest number of first-time opening day starters in my decade of tracking this.
Historically, here’s the all-time record holders:
- Most Ever Opening day Starts: Tom Seaver with 16. Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton
- Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Jack Morris, all of whom’s 14 opening day starts were in a row.
Hope you enjoy this useless trivia!