Starting pitcher ML debut on Opening Day
Posted by Andy on March 8, 2011
Who are the only 3 pitchers since 1920 to make their major-league debuts as the starting pitcher on Opening Day?
Click through...
| Rk | Gcar | Player | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | App,Dec | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | GSc | BF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Al Gerheauser | 1943-04-24 | PHI | BRO | L 4-11 | 4.0 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 27 | 21 | 11.25 | |
| 2 | 1 | Jim Bagby | 1938-04-18 | BOS | NYY | W 8-4 | 6.0 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 47 | 29 | 4.50 | |
| 3 | 1 | Lefty Grove | 1925-04-14 | PHA | BOS | W 9-8 | 3.2 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 22 | 9.82 |
It hasn't happened since 1943 and it's tough to imagine it ever happening again. (Never say never, though...)
Curious that all the teams involved in these 3 games were based in Philly, Boston, or New York.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:36 am
How did Gerheauser not get the loss? 4 innings, 5 runs in a game in which his team only scored 4. Impossible to not get a loss if he started the game.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:46 am
I could see it happening again, under an unusual set of circumstances.. If a team's intended opening day starter gets hurt at the last minute, and has to use their intended-for-long-relief rookie to start.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:47 am
Clicking on the link, it appears Gerheauser indeed was the losing pitcher.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:53 am
Wouldn't it be more likely today? These days it could be a hotshot pitcher from another country. For example, if Yu Darvish comes over from Japan next year, he'd be the Opening Day starter for most teams.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:57 am
Steve, I don't think history has shown that. Matsuzaka, Nomo, and others didn't do it. Usually teams give preference to their established pitchers. However I agree that an international player is the most likely. Hotshot American draftees like Strasburg don't usually make this MLB debuts at the beginning of the season.
March 8th, 2011 at 9:52 am
How did Gerheauser not get the loss? 4 innings, 5 runs in a game in which his team only scored 4. Impossible to not get a loss if he started the game.
I think the "App,Dec" column gets populated only if that game has PBP data. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
March 8th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Another factor, I would think, is that many teams like to start young prospects in the bullpen first, at the major league level, as the Twins did with Johan Santana (to give perhaps the most famous recent example). Then, the pitcher can learn to pitch to major league hitters, and gradually the team will increase his innings. So I think that's another knock against young prospects.
March 8th, 2011 at 9:58 am
Curious that all the teams involved in these 3 games were based in Philly, Boston, or New York.
Not reallly -- mildly significant, but remember, at the time, there were only 16 teams and nearly half (seven) were in NY (three), Boston and Philly (two each).
March 8th, 2011 at 11:49 am
It would be interesting to know why these three received this unusual honor. In Gerheauser's case it's pretty clear: the Phillies' best pitcher the year before, Tommy Hughes, was in the service, their second-best, Rube Melton, had been traded to the Dodgers, and Gerheauser must have looked like the only good option left. The Phillies had just acquired him from the Yankees; he was a fine pitcher in the minors, but the Yankees' staff was phenomenally deep and they had no use for him.
Grove, though, got the start instead of Eddie Rommel, one of the few stars on the bad Athletics teams of the early twenties. The expectations would have been very high for Grove, who had dominated the International League for four years. But expectations have been high for a lot of rookies.
And the pitcher Bagby started instead of in 1938 was none other than Lefty Grove. I have no explanation for that. If Grove was hurt, he got well quickly--he started the game the next day.
March 8th, 2011 at 11:57 am
Re: could it happen today -- Tim's scenario @2 is quite plausible. But I don't think any team would do it voluntarily. There's a sort of "Catch-22" involved: No team would consider giving a pure rookie the Opening Day assignment unless he was unquestionably the best pitcher on the staff -- but if he's THAT good, and that young, they wouldn't want to subject him to the pressure of the O.D. start and the symbolic baggage that comes with it.
March 8th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
If memory serves, the Reds started a rookie on Opening Day 1979 or 1980 -- not his big league debut though. Frank Pastore took the ball in place of Tom Seaver, who was injured or somesuch. I think Frank was still technically a rookie at that point ...
March 8th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
If you look at the 1943 schedule you'll see that games started playing as early as April 20. Maybe Schoolboy Rowe (who was very well established by 1943) was the scheduled starter for opening day (on the 22nd or 23rd). But after pitching an inning or two the game was rained out leaving Gerheauser (who was next in the rotation) to start in what would have be the second game of the season but actually turned out to be opening day.
March 8th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
if an international star starts on opening day, that means a low-rung team has to win the bidding war for him, and he has to be their most marketable pitching asset because he won't be mlb-established.
March 8th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
@11, Mick -- Frank Pastore did pitch on O.D. 1979, and it was his MLB debut, but he didn't start. (Seaver started and got knocked out in the 2nd; Pastore pitched the last 3 innings.) And because Pastore logged 95 innings in '79, that was his official rookie year. So when he started O.D. 1980 (and threw a shutout, by the way), he was no longer a rookie.
March 8th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
@9, Morten -- One possible reason that Jim Bagby started the BoSox' 1938 opener, instead of Lefty Grove: Maybe the hosts were trying to goose the attendance for the 2nd game of the year, which usually has a much smaller crowd than Opening Day. That 2nd game was a classic Lefty matchup, Grove vs. Gomez.
One flaw in my theory, though: According to the box scores, Boston's attendance was just 10,500 on Opening Day, and 10,000 the next day. (On the other hand, that a pretty good crowd by BoSox standards -- they never had an average home attendance of 10,000 until the Ted Williams era.)
March 8th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Bagby's a fascinating guy. Son of a 30-game winner. (first father/son WS pitchers). Had three putouts in an inning once. Pitched against Dimaggio the day the streak ended.
I imagine his father may have helped to hyped his debut quite a bit.
March 8th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I think if we hadn't been involved in WWII, then there would only be two names on this list. There are plenty of well known stories of players who never would have made it to the majors, except that so many players went off to war. I'm sure that if the pitching staffs hadn't been depleted, then Gerheauser probably wouldn't have been pitching.
Piggy backing on some discussion above, I think there are two likely scenarios that could cause a rookie to start opening day. As mentioned above, it could be a foreign star or it could be a last minute issue with the starting pitcher where they bring in the rookie to "pinch pitch". Although this is very unlikely, there have been situations where the starting pitcher on opening day couldn't start and they picked some one to take his place other than the #2 starter, as they didn't want to throw off the rotation.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Mickey Cochrane also made his debut in the Lefty Grove game.
March 8th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
@15, John--
The game that Grove pitched was the first of a doubleheader; attendance for the second game is listed at 33,000. I don't quite understand why the two games have separate attendance figures (Fenway Park didn't have lights yet, so it couldn't have been a day-night doubleheader), or why only 10,000 people would pay to see Lefty Grove face Lefty Gomez, but 33,000 came for Jack Wilson against Monte Pearson. Maybe that 10,000 is a mistake, and 33,000 is the figure for both games. Or maybe it was Moe Berg they really wanted to see; Moe caught the second game. It's also possible the weather was really lousy both days. Over three times as many people saw the first two games at Fenway in 1937.
March 9th, 2011 at 12:01 am
Weather could also be a factor. I remember in 1982, the Blue Jays had their first series snowed out, and the opening day starter ended up being Mark Bomback, essentially the extra man in a four man rotation (Stieb, Clancy, Leal, Gott).
March 9th, 2011 at 5:55 am
I can see another scenario where it MIGHT happen. Say the ace is warming in the bullpen and tweaks a muscle 15-20 minutes before the game. Starters 2-3-4- are not available because their last Cactus/Grapefruit appearances have been scheduled based on the projected rotation.
The manager is likely to choose whichever bullpen candidate is most likely to give hi 4 or 5 decent innings and that might very well be the rookie long man.
March 9th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
It wasn't his debut, but Fernando Valenzuela started on opening day of his rookie year when Jerry Reuss got hurt. He'd pitched 17 innings the year before.
March 9th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
The '43 Phillies actually had a starter make his major league debut the first 2 games of the season.
Generated 3/9/2011.