Game notes from Sunday’s Opening Day Cardinals/Pirates game

Here are some game notes for the Opening Day STL/PIT game from yesterday.

Pirates 4, Cardinals 1

Francisco Liriano became the 1st Pirates pitcher to start 3 straight Opening Day games since Doug Drabek in 1990-92. The last guy before that was Bob Veale, who started 4 straight from 1964 to 1967.
Liriano and Rip Sewell are the only Pirates Opening Day starters in the last 100 years with more than 1 scoreless start of at least 6 innings pitched.
Liriano became the first Pirates Opening Day pitcher with an RBI since Oliver Perez (gulp) in 2006. The last before him was Jon Lieber in 1997.
For the second straight year, the Pirates’ Opening Day battery had the same first name–Franciscos of both the Liriano and Cervelli type. The last time the Bucs’ Opening Day battery had the same first name was in 2000, when it was Jason Schmidt and Jason Kendall. Before that, it was 1988 with Mike Dunne and Mike LaValliere.
2016 marks the 3rd time in the last 4 years the Cardinals managed exactly 5 hits on Opening Day. They did manage to win one of those games, in 2014, but it required a shutout by Adam Wainwright plus 4 relievers.
Only 33 times since 1913 has a catcher been caught stealing on Opening Day, including Cervelli yesterday. He was the first to do it for the Pirates since Rollie Hemsley in 1930. Amazingly, just back in 2008 was the last time the catcher was attempting to steal home, when Dioner Navarro was nabbed. (Of course, like Cervelli yesterday, many of these caught stealings may have been instigated by a pickoff rather than being a straight steal attempt.)
Yesterday was just the second time since 1983 that the Pirates and Cardinals have faced each other on Opening Day. Pittsburgh has won the last 4 Opening Day games in 2016, 2009, 1983, and 1982. The last time the Cardinals won was in 1980, in a 1-0 shutout of Pete Vuckovich over Bert Blyleven.
Randal Grichuk is only the 2nd Cardinals’ CF ever to strike out 3+ times on Opening Day. The other was David Green in 1983.
Cervelli’s triple was only the second on Opening Day by a Pirates catcher since 1913. The other was, inexplicably, by Benito Santiago in 2005.

Josh Harrison is the first Pirate in the Play Index era (since 1913) with both a sac fly and a sac bunt on Opening Day. It’s happened only 7 times by players from other teams:

Rk            Player       Date  Tm Opp    Rslt
1       Nyjer Morgan 2014-03-31 CLE OAK   W 2-0
2         Tony Gwynn 2008-03-31 MIL CHC   W 4-3
3    Darrin Fletcher 2002-04-01 TOR BOS W 12-11
4         Bret Boone 2001-04-02 SEA OAK   W 5-4
5       Lou Whitaker 1993-04-05 DET OAK   L 4-9
6          Don Money 1974-04-05 MIL BOS   L 8-9
7         Ron Hansen 1958-04-15 BAL WSH   W 6-1

John Jaso is the first Pirates first baseman to bat leadoff on Opening Day since Gary Redus in 1991. Before him? Paul Smith in 1953. Before him? George Grantham in 1927.
Up until about 1990, it wasn’t unusual for both teams’ shortstops to bat #8 in the lineup. When the Steroids Era came along, shortstops started batting all over the lineup. However, it’s happened more in recent years. There were 2 such games on Opening Day in 2013, and 2 more in 2015, and then in the PIT/STL game yesterday.
The Cardinals hadn’t had their leadoff batter ground into a double play on Opening Day since 1990, when Vince Coleman did it, before Matt Carpenter did it yesterday. Lonnie Smith did it in 1982 and 1984 and Lou Brock did it in 1974.

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Doug

8 years ago

John Jaso and Matt Holliday both made their first major league start at first base. No idea how to check when that last happened on opening day, but it must be unusual for both such players to have 500+ big league games under their belts. There have been three opening day games since 1913 in which both teams had their starting first baseman make his major league debut, the last in 1947 with Jackie Robinson and the Braves’ Earl Torgeson. Holliday breaks his string of 1614 games with no other fielding position but left field. His twelve such seasons from… Read more »

brp

8 years ago

Holliday only made it one inning at 1B before moving to LF due to an injury to LF Tommy Pham.

Will be interesting to see what the Pirates can scrape together between Jaso/Morse at 1B – I think it’ll be a fairly productive duo, at least relative to the cost.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

In unrelated news, Cumberland ‘Cum’ Posey was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He’s also in the Baseball Hall of Fame for his years in the Negro Leagues. He becomes the first player to be inducted into both Halls of Fame, and I don’t think anyone will join him for a long time.

Daniel Longmire

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

Danny Ainge, perhaps? 🙂

oneblankspace

8 years ago

Reply to Daniel Longmire

maybe Chuck Connors

no statistician but

8 years ago

Reply to oneblankspace

What about Gene Conley?

Editor

Doug

8 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

Don’t forget Michael Jordan.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

The Dodgers beat the Padres 15 to 0 just now, setting a record for the most lopsided opening day shutout in MLB history.

Doug

8 years ago

The Brewer-Giant opener was the first OD game without a DH and with neither starting pitcher batting 9th. It was the 26th time that’s happened in any game since 1913, the previous 25 occurring in 2015 (14 games) and 2008 (11 games). Those two seasons have the highest percentage of non-DH games with at least one starting pitcher batting somewhere other than 9th, both over 8% of such team games (2015 was over 11%).

Kahuna Tuna

8 years ago

The Rockies scored 10 runs in today’s opener. They also scored 10 in their first game of 2015. Believe it or not, they’ve now reached double digits only four times in their 24 opening-day games.

David P

8 years ago

Kershaw is just the 10th opening day starter to go 7+ innings and give up 1 or fewer basehits. Oddly, it’s happened two years in a row as Sonny Gray pulled off the feat last year. Before that, you have to go back to Kevin Brown in 1997.

Doug

8 years ago

Reply to David P

Only one no-hitter on opening day, by Bob Feller on Apr 16, 1940. His battery-mate Rollie Hemsley knocked in the only run of the game. There was another 1-0 game the same day, a two-hit shutout by Lefty Grove over the Senators. In only one of the eight games that day did both teams score more than one run.

Chris Tillman’s start for Baltimore on Monday was cut short by a lengthy rain delay. His two innings of work stands as the shortest OD start by a pitcher not allowing a hit.

oneblankspace

8 years ago

The first hit of the season for the White Sox was a triple. Only 2.04% of Sox hits last season were triples.

Steven

8 years ago

Cardinals: Too many George Kerneks; not enough Orlando Cepedas.

Lawrence Azrin

8 years ago

One of my ‘guilty pleasures’ is looking at the league leaders the first couple weeks, and extrapolating them for the entire year. I _do_ realize intellectually that this is an absurd exercise; in my heart , know that Yasiel Puig isn’t going to hit 162 triples or score 324 runs this year; Daniel Murphy isn’t going to have an OPS of 4.800 (.800 would be pretty good…), and rookie Trevor Story isn’t going to have 972 total bases. I remember one year (1991?) Tony Pena got off to a ridiculous start with the Red Sox, batting over .400 and leading… Read more »

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

Remember when Chris Shelton got off to that ridiculous start in 2006? After four games, he had 5 HRs and a 2.472 OPS. After 13 games, he had 9 HRs, 17 RBI and a 1.716 OPS. Even after he cooled down quite a bit, he finished April with 10 HRs and a 1.186 OPS. After that 13th game, somebody in my fantasy league tried to pry Pujols away from me for Shelton, swearing to me that Shelton was going to challenge Bonds’s 73. I asked him which bridge he wanted me to throw in to sweeten the deal, the Brooklyn… Read more »

Lawrence Azrin

8 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

OK, I checked his Batting Game Logs; it was 1990, when after April 30th, he was batting .403. Looking closer, though, he had five doubles, 2 HR, and zero(!) walks, for a good, but less impressive, slash line of .403/.403/ .556. He finished the year at .263/ .322/ .348, for on OPS+ of 85.

His hot start must’ve made an impression on at least one or two writers though, as he got six points in the AL MVP voting, good for 21st place, one ahead of Wade Boggs.

Lawrence Azrin

8 years ago

Reply to Lawrence Azrin

His hot start must’ve made an impression on at least one or two writers though, as he got six points in the AL MVP voting, good for 21st place, one ahead of Wade Boggs.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Trevor Story becomes the first player in modern MLB history (and likely ever, though they only checked since 1900) to hit a HR in his first three career games. He has 4 HRs total in those 3 games. And most impressively IMO, even though he’s on the Rockies, all of this has happened on the road, at Arizona.

Editor

Doug

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

These were the players Story was tied with prior to today, with home runs in their first two games with an AB. Rk Name Strk Start End Games HR RBI SO Tm 1 Trevor Story 2016-04-04 2016-04-05 2 3 5 2 COL 2 Joey Gallo 2015-06-02 2015-06-03 2 2 5 4 TEX 3 Brett Pill 2011-09-06 2011-09-07 2 2 3 0 SFG 4 Chris Gimenez 2009-06-04 2009-06-07 2 2 2 1 CLE 5 John Bowker 2008-04-12 2008-04-13 2 2 7 0 SFG 6 Elijah Dukes 2007-04-02 2007-04-05 2 2 2 2 TBD 7 Kevin Kouzmanoff 2006-09-02 2006-09-03 2 2 5… Read more »

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to Doug

Four Indians, three of whom were recent enough that I remember watching their debuts. Kouzmanoff’s first PA was a Grand Slam, of course. First pitch he saw, to boot. Bard’s HR in his first game was a walk-off. He actually had all 3 RBI in a 4-2 win over the Mariners (the 4th run scored on an error; the HR was a two-run shot, and Bard’s other RBI came on a grounder that scored Matt Lawton). Looking at the box score gives me some bad flashbacks to the 2002 season: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE200208230.shtml Bard’s walk-off job gave the win to Mark Wohlers… Read more »

David P

8 years ago

Reply to Doug

“with home runs in their first two games with an AB.”

Great attention to detail Doug! Chris Gimenez’ first game was as a 9th inning defensive replacement for Victor Martinez. He then homered in his first two games with AB’s, as you noted.

no statistician but

8 years ago

Reply to Doug

Lists like this so often have no one memorable on them, but here we have some decent players, including a HOFer in Averill and a legend in Dr. Strangeglove. Joe Cunningham is an interesting inclusion, the only player except Story with 3 HRs, plus he drove in 9. That season, 1954, he played half the year with the Cards, batting .284, and was returned to the minors for the next two. Why? The team had too many young talents in the outfield, so Musial was moved to first base and poor Joe went back to Rochester. Despite the 3 dingers… Read more »

Editor

Doug

8 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

Some Cunningham factoids: – His 4062 PA are the third fewest among retired first basemen with 20 career WAR – He homered once every 32 PA in his rookie year, but only once every 70 PA for the rest of his career – His 1962 season of 90 runs and walks but fewer than 50 XBH’s is one of only five by an expansion era first baseman (the last was by Keith Hernandez in the Mets’ world championship 1986 season) – He and Rickey Henderson are the only live ball era first baseman or outfielder to have three 300 PA… Read more »

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Kenta Maeda joins the relatively exclusive club of pitchers to HR in their first major-league AB. Hoyt Wilhelm is obviously the most notable member of that club. The last pitcher to do it was Tommy Milone in 2011.

Maeda is the 2nd Japanese born player to achieve the feat, after Kaz Matsui in 2004.

Maeda had two HRs in his NPB career – one in his rookie year of 2008 and one in his last (so far) Japanese season in 2015.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

Whoops, Maeda actually hit that HR in his second AB. He struck out in his first AB.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

The San Diego Padres become the first team (at least since 1913) to be shut out in their first 3 games of the season.

4 shutouts in a row is the record in the PI searchable era, most recently by the 1992 Cubs.

The Dodgers are also the first team in the searchable era to start their season with 3 straight team shutouts. For them to reach the record, they’d need to hit 5 in a row, last done by the 1995 Orioles in their last 5 games of the season.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

Correction: The 1963 Cardinals also started the season with 3 straight team shutouts. For some reason the PI streak finder missed that particular streak.

Kahuna Tuna

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

The Padres now travel to Denver for a three-game series. They really ought to be able to score something there.

Kahuna Tuna

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

Per the B-Ref Streak Finder— The only team since 1900 with a worse run differential through the season’s first three games than the 2016 Padres’ -25 is the 1978 Orioles, who scored 11 runs and allowed 40 (-29) in losing their opening series against the Brewers by scores of 3-11, 3-16, and 5-13. Those Orioles got back to .500 by game 50 and finished the season with a 90-71 record. The 1951 Eddie Gaedel Browns lost to the White Sox 3-17 and 5-13 and to the Indians 1-4 for a -25 run differential through three games. Those Browns finished 52-102.… Read more »

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to Kahuna Tuna

The Padres end their scoreless streak in a big way, scoring 6 runs in the 4th inning after they extended the streak to 30 1/3 innings scoreless to open the year.

But there’s an even bigger Story from that Rockies/Padres tilt, and his name is Trevor. He did it again, with his 5th HR in his 4th carer game. He also hit an RBI single, so he’s at 10 RBI for the season. Unbelievable.

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Reply to CursedClevelander

Unreal. He hits yet another HR and now sets a record for the most HRs through the 1st 4 games of a season (6), and extends his record for the most consecutive games with a HR to start a career (4).

Kahuna Tuna

8 years ago

Casual observation, along with idle speculation that it might be a record: Yesterday the Giants started five players who have five-letter last names beginning with P—Buster Posey, Joe Panik, Hunter Pence, Jake Peavy, and Ángel Pagán.

Doug

8 years ago

Reply to Kahuna Tuna

They also did it in these games:
– Pence, Panik, Posey, Perez, Petit – 9/20/14
– Pence, Panik, Posey, Perez, Peavy – 9/16/14 and 8/2/14
– Pence, Posey, Perez, Pagan, Petit – 9/22/13

CursedClevelander

8 years ago

Ross Stripling of the Dodgers threw 7 1/3 innings of no-hit ball in his debut yesterday against the Giants (though the bullpen wasted his effort). He didn’t get a chance to join Bumpus Jones as the only pitchers in baseball history to throw a no-hitter in their debut, but he did have the longest debut start surrendering 0 hits that I could find in the PI searchable era (so, since 1913). In 1917, Walter ‘Lefty’ Anderson threw 3 no-hit shutout innings in his debut for the A’s against the White Sox. If you extend the search to a player’s 2nd… Read more »