{"id":14704,"date":"2018-04-12T14:16:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14704"},"modified":"2018-04-12T14:18:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T18:18:29","slug":"opening-day-starter-useless-trivia-for-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14704","title":{"rendered":"Opening Day Starter Useless Trivia for 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5993\" style=\"width: 179px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/HernandezFelix-Keith-Allison-flickr-CCL1.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5993\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5993\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5993\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/HernandezFelix-Keith-Allison-flickr-CCL1-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Felix Hernandez made his leading 11th opening day start. Photo Keith Allison via flickr\/CCL\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/HernandezFelix-Keith-Allison-flickr-CCL1-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/HernandezFelix-Keith-Allison-flickr-CCL1.jpg 579w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5993\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Felix Hernandez made his leading 11th opening day start.<br \/>Photo Keith Allison via flickr\/CCL<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Every year I capture the Opening Day Starters into an XLS and then capture some useless trivia on it.\u00a0 This is that post.<\/p>\n<p>Google Doc XLS link: (the data is too big to make an HTML table):\u00a0https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1Mv8gLgJOuJHEAf_pXNwPWGCNRL4RnYEyulH6rxMuudA\/edit?usp=sharing<\/p>\n<p><strong>Max Scherzer<\/strong> made his 3rd\u00a0 career opening day start, all in a Nat&#8217;s uniform (he never\u00a0 got an Opening day start while pitching behind\u00a0<strong>Justin Verlander<\/strong> in Detroit).\u00a0 \u00a0<strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> has himself made four opening day starts, with these two guys covering every Nats opening day start dating to 2011.<\/p>\n<p>The Nats have one other player with Opening day starts on their resume:\u00a0<strong>Jeremy Hellickson<\/strong> made the 2016 and 2017 opening day starts for Philadelphia.\u00a0 He currently sits in XST building up arm strength so he can take over for\u00a0<strong>A.J. Cole<\/strong> as our fifth starter after he blows up a couple more times.\u00a0 And its worth noting that former Nat\u00a0<strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> earned his first ever such start for Detroit this year, shortly before getting hit in the head with a come-backer.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s some useless\u00a0trivia related to Opening Day Starts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Active Leader: Tie at the top: Seattle&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Felix Hernandez<\/strong> with 11.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>CC Sabathia<\/strong> also has 11, but hasn&#8217;t made the Yankee&#8217;s start since 2014.<\/li>\n<li>Active Consecutive Leader: Also Hernandez, who has made 10 straight, missing one in 2008 when\u00a0<strong>Erik Bedard<\/strong> took the mound in Game 1 as the new shiny FA signing that spring.\u00a0 The next closest is\u00a0<strong>Clayton Kershaw<\/strong>, who has made 8 straight for LA.<\/li>\n<li>Other longish conseutive starts streak: Atlanta&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Julio Teheran<\/strong> with 5,\u00a0<strong>Corey Kluber<\/strong> with 4, and\u00a0<strong>Chris Archer<\/strong> with 4.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Madison Bumgarner<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Masahiro Tanaka<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Dallas Keuchel<\/strong> all had 3-4 start streaks broken thanks to injury or being passed over for a different guy.<\/li>\n<li>13 of the 30 games were started by first time Opening Day starters this year, continuing a trend of new,\u00a0 younger guys getting these starts.\u00a0 In fact, I&#8217;d say that a couple of the opening day starters you&#8217;d be hard pressed to pull out of a lineup: Miami&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Jose Urena<\/strong>, Milwaukee&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Chase Anderson, <\/strong>and\u00a0SF&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Ty Blach\u00a0<\/strong>in particular.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All-time records:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most Ever: <strong>Tom Seaver<\/strong> (16).\u00a0 Tied for 2nd place with 14 is <strong>Jack Morris, Randy Johnson<\/strong> and <strong>Steve Carlton<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Most Consecutive: Jack Morris (14)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Can Felix get 5 more starts to break Morris&#8217; record?\u00a0 \u00a0He&#8217;s only signed through 2019 with an option for 2020, so he&#8217;d need to get an extension &#8230; something that&#8217;s more and more rare in today&#8217;s Baseball climate.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to that same trend against aging pitchers, a slew of former leaders of Opening Day starts may be permanently retired out of the game.\u00a0 Guys like\u00a0<strong>Jered Weaver<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Tim Lincecum, Edison Volquez, Yovanni Gallardo<\/strong> (who was just DFA&#8217;d),\u00a0<strong>Ricky Nolasco<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Jake Peavy<\/strong> and perhaps a few others, all of whom have at least 4-5 opening day starts to their name are struggling to find work right now or may be done.\u00a0 \u00a0Its turning into a young man&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every year I capture the Opening Day Starters into an XLS and then capture some useless trivia on it.\u00a0 This is that post. Google Doc XLS link: (the data is too big to make an HTML table):\u00a0https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/1Mv8gLgJOuJHEAf_pXNwPWGCNRL4RnYEyulH6rxMuudA\/edit?usp=sharing Max Scherzer made his 3rd\u00a0 career opening day start, all in a Nat&#8217;s uniform (he never\u00a0 got an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,47,3748,1263,426,1957,2593,3750,1300,407,575,1022,406,239,43,3747,1913,44,894,2166,1037,374,778,38,1429,316,1130,3749,2380],"class_list":["post-14704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-aj-cole","tag-cc-sabathia","tag-chase-anderson","tag-chris-archer","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-corey-kluber","tag-dallas-keuchel","tag-edison-volquez","tag-erik-bedard","tag-felix-hernandez","tag-jack-morris","tag-jake-peavy","tag-jered-weaver","tag-jeremy-hellickson","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-jose-urena","tag-julio-teheran","tag-justin-verlander","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-masahiro-tanaka","tag-max-scherzer","tag-randy-johnson","tag-ricky-nolasco","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-steve-carlton","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-tom-seaver","tag-ty-blach","tag-yovanni-gallardo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14709,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704\/revisions\/14709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}