Opening Day, 2017

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The LA Times has a special Baseball 2017 section in its Sunday, April 2 edition.

Padres at Dodgers, 1:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA, ESPN (out-of market only), FSSD

The Padres send Jhoulys Chacin out to do battle with the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw. Chacin will make his second Opening Day start; the first was for the Rockies in 2013. He was with the Angels last year and finished strong: he had a 0.75 ERA in his last four starts for them. He did well for Venezuela in this year’s World Baseball Classic as well. This will be Kershaw’s seventh straight Opening Day start for the Dodgers. That ties him with Drysdale and Sutton for the team record. This will be the fourth time he’ll face the Padres on Opening Day; he gave up three runs on nine hits in the previous 16 innings on those occasions.

The Padres have two potential Rookie of the Year candidates, “outfielders Manuel Margot and Hunter Renfroe, ranked No. 23 and No. 42, respectively, among MLBPipeline.com’s Top 100 prospects.”

Renfore and Margot excelled for Triple-A El Paso last year en route to a Pacific Coast League championship. Margot batted .304 and stole 30 bases, while Renfroe earned PCL MVP honors by hitting .306 with 30 home runs.

Lineups when available.

Here’s the Opening Day roster. The interesting part is probably the Disabled List, where six guys will start the year:

Pedro Baez, RHP (10-day, right wrist contusion, retroactive to March 30); Andre Ethier, OF (10-day, lumbar disk herniation, retroactive to March 30); Yimi Garcia, RHP (60-day, right elbow surgery); Scott Kazmir, LHP (10-day, left hip strain, retroactive to March 30); Josh Ravin, RHP (10-day, right groin strain, retroactive to March 30); Brock Stewart, RHP (10-day, right shoulder tendinitis, retroactive to March 30)

Here’s the lineup:

65 thoughts on “Opening Day, 2017”

  3. Question time for those who can research it (looking at you, Bob H. 😉 The team could claim a HR cycle from yesterday with Joc’s slam kicking it off and 3-run, 2-run, and solo shots. Is that a MLB first, at least for opening day? Unlikely to have happened very often, if ever.

    And speaking of firsts, is the Padres’ experiment with Bethancourt as a 3-way player– pitcher, catcher, and OF a MLB first? You would think so.

    • Babe Ruth started as a pitcher and was a two-way player for a while before becoming a full-time outfielder.

      Personal anecdote: In high school, our No. 2 starter was our No. 1 catcher and, when we had to play a championship doubleheader, he pitched game No. 1 because our coach determined it would be too exhausting to catch a game and then pitch. Oddly, he won game No. 1, but our No. 1 starter lost game 2. Game 3 of the series took place a few days later, and our No. 1 starter won that.

  4. Woo-HOO!!!! First opening day I have had to miss in years, due to work. Looks like they did okay in the RBI department without me…

  5. Good win by the Dodgers and good to see our +or – ten run specialist put to good use and close it out!

  6. Most Opening Day-HRs in franchise history . . . may that be a sign of things to come!

  10. Hi everyone . . . let’s hope today’s score is indicative of 2017!

    How ironic that Puig is victimized by bad baserunning! The pain is lessened with a 10-run lead.

  11. I like the pinch hitting for Kershaw after 84 pitches. No need for him to go any further today.

  15. My goodness, this is reminiscent of the 25-0 shellacking the Dodgers gave the Padres in that first series last year or the year before.

      • I think if I remember correctly something like 25-0 was a several years ago against the Twins. I remember that game because I believe Aussie Trent O hit a home run.

  18. Jeez, first pitch of the year and the converted catcher has an encounter at the plate. (No shin guards!)

  24. Drifting in and out of wifi range as I (try to) listen to the game while travelling from Saskatchewan back home to Wpg on Greyhound. Glad to hear the Dodgers have tied it up.

  33. Haven’t had this level of expectations going in since the 2009 season. Starting pitching was a bit weak that year, but our offense gave us a run differential that resulted in 95 wins.

    • As they say in forecasting, if you can’t predict well, predict often. How many times was Matty traded before he was traded?