In baseball, an opening pitcher, more frequently referred to as an opener, is a pitcher who specializes in getting the first outs in a game, before being replaced by a long reliever or a pitcher who would typically be a starting pitcher. Pitchers employed in the role of opener have usually been relief pitchers by trade. The strategy was frequently employed in Major League Baseball (MLB) by the Tampa Bay Rays during the 2018 season, when it was adopted by other teams as well.
By the 1980s, MLB teams had adopted starting rotations consisting of five starting pitchers, with all other pitchers on the active roster serving as relief pitchers. [1] Traditionally, a starter was expected to throw the most innings of any pitcher in a game. [2] [3] Starters typically pitched until they got into trouble or reached a pitch count threshold, [4] or the game ended.
In Game 7 of the 1924 World Series, the Washington Senators had their starting pitcher, the right-handed Curly Ogden, pitch to only two batters and then brought in a left-handed pitcher, with the intent of locking the opposing team into their left-handed lineup. [5] [6] Similarly, in the 1990 National League Championship Series, the Pittsburgh Pirates decided to open the game with right-handed relief pitcher Ted Power before installing the announced starting pitcher, left-hander Zane Smith, in an attempt to get the Cincinnati Reds to change their batting lineup. [7] In 1993, the Oakland Athletics had a poor starting rotation, and manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan split their pitchers into platoons, with a core of dedicated relief pitchers. Though the experiment lasted for only six games before the Athletics returned to a traditional starting rotation, Ron Darling, a member of the 1993 Athletics, called it "a precursor to all the things that you see today". [1] La Russa and Duncan also used an opener on the last day of the 2007 Major League Baseball season when their St. Louis Cardinals handed the ball to Troy Percival, a longtime closer with 358 career saves and 702 relief appearances to go along with this, his only career start. Percival worked an inning before being relieved by Kip Wells, a pitcher for whom 219 of his 296 career appearances were as a starter. [8] [9] [10]
In the 21st century, baseball writers advanced the idea that starting pitchers are less effective against the opposing team's hitters the more times in a game they face them. Dave Fleming, a writer for Bill James Online, wrote in 2009 about a proposed "3-3-3 rotation" where pitchers would be limited to throwing three innings in a game. [1] Bryan Grosnick, writing for SB Nation's Beyond the Box Score, suggested using an opening pitcher for an inning or two before giving way to a more traditional starting pitcher in a 2013 article. [11] [12] In his 2016 book, Ahead of the Curve, Brian Kenny suggested the possible use of an opening pitcher, noting that the highest scoring inning is typically the first inning, so a team should use a relief pitcher to shut down the top of the opposing team's batting order. [13] [14]
The Tampa Bay Rays began experimenting with an opener during the 2018 season, first utilizing the strategy on May 19. The first pitcher they chose to deploy as the opener was Sergio Romo, a veteran who has served as a closer. Romo pitched in the role again on May 22 and 23. [15] The Rays returned Romo to their closer role in June, and they continued to use an opener, primarily turning to Ryne Stanek, Diego Castillo and Hunter Wood for the role, regularly using Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos, and Jalen Beeks in immediate relief of the opener. [16] The Rays saw their team earned run average (ERA) decrease after beginning to use the strategy. [17] [18] The Rays' openers recorded a 3.97 ERA in a combined 93 innings pitched, which bested the league average ERA of 4.15. [19] During the summer, the Rays also experimented with an opener in their Double-A and Triple-A affiliates. [20]
In June, the Los Angeles Dodgers used Scott Alexander as an opener due to injuries in their starting rotation. [21] The Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, and Texas Rangers also employed openers in the last month of the 2018 season. [22] [23] [lower-alpha 1] In the nine games in which the Athletics used the opener strategy in September (with Liam Hendriks serving as opener in eight of those games), they posted a win–loss record of 4–5 and a 1.86 ERA. [25] The Athletics also chose to use Hendriks as the opener, unsuccessfully, in the 2018 American League Wild Card Game. [26] In the 2018 National League Championship Series, the Milwaukee Brewers used starter Wade Miley as an opener in Game 5. [27] [28] He pitched to only one batter before being replaced, becoming just the second pitcher in MLB playoff history to start a game and face only one batter. [lower-alpha 2]
When Farhan Zaidi became general manager of the San Francisco Giants after the 2018 season, he spoke about using an opener to protect Dereck Rodriguez and Andrew Suarez from being overworked. [29]
The Tampa Bay Rays continued to use an opener in many of their games, with Ryne Stanek often filling the role. [30] However, interest and usage in the opener strategy was far less pronounced than the season previous. The New York Yankees coped with having three of their starting pitchers on the injured list by using reliever Chad Green as an opener. Green would pitch the first inning or two and then hand over the game to a long reliever. [31] During the 2019 regular season, Green opened 15 games for the Yankees; the Yankees won 11 of the games that he started. [32] The Los Angeles Angels pitched a no-hitter using an opener, with Taylor Cole working the first two innings and Félix Peña the last seven in their 13–0 no-hitter against the Seattle Mariners on July 12. [33]
One advantage of the strategy is that the opener, who is often a hard-throwing specialist, can be called in to face the most dangerous hitters, who are usually near the top of the batting order, the first time they come to bat. [24] If the opener is successful, the job of the next pitcher is easier since they will start with less-dangerous hitters. [34] [35] The strategy also throws off the timing of the top-of-the-order hitters, who are not used to seeing different pitchers each time they come to bat, and allows the usual starting pitcher to face the top of the lineup two times rather than three. [24]
From a financial perspective, the strategy allows teams to make more use of relief pitchers who are still under low-paying contracts, potentially reducing the salaries paid to starting pitchers because the latter are used less. Also, pitchers not starting games causes them to be less likely to receive win–loss decisions or receive as many "games started," which greatly affects subsequent arbitration hearings and financial compensation in future contract negotiations. [19]
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer.
In baseball, a starting pitcher or starter is the first pitcher in the game for each team. A pitcher is credited with a game started if they throw the first pitch to the opponent's first batter of a game. Starting pitchers are expected to pitch for a significant portion of the game, although their ability to do this depends on many factors, including effectiveness, stamina, health, and strategy.
In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who pitches in the game after the starting pitcher has been removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weather delays or pinch hitter substitutions. Relief pitchers are further divided informally into various roles, such as closers, setup men, middle relief pitchers, left/right-handed specialists, and long relievers. Whereas starting pitchers usually throw so many pitches in a single game that they must rest several days before pitching in another, relief pitchers are expected to be more flexible and typically pitch in more games with a shorter time period between pitching appearances but with fewer innings pitched per appearance. A team's staff of relievers is normally referred to metonymically as a team's bullpen, which refers to the area where the relievers sit during games, and where they warm-up prior to entering the game.
Kevin Forrest Cash is an American professional baseball manager and former player who is the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Previously, Cash played catcher in MLB for the Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros. As a player, Cash was listed at 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 m) and 200 pounds (91 kg); he batted and threw right-handed. He was the bullpen coach for the Cleveland Indians before being hired as the Rays' manager in December 2014. Cash was the American League Manager of the Year in 2020 and 2021, the first AL manager to win the award consecutively. Cash will enter the 2024 season as the longest-tenured manager in MLB.
Chad Edward Gaudin is a former American professional baseball pitcher. He has been used as both a starting pitcher and a reliever throughout his career, functioning as a "swingman."
Grant Robert Balfour is an Australian former professional baseball relief pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays / Rays, and Oakland Athletics. He is second all-time in saves and strikeouts among Australian MLB pitchers behind Liam Hendriks, and holds the Oakland Athletics consecutive save record at 44.
Philip Joseph Hughes is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres during a career that spanned from 2007 through 2018. Hughes stands 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) tall and weighs 240 pounds (110 kg). He was the Yankees' first-round pick in the 2004 MLB draft.
Cory Nathaniel Wade is an American former professional baseball relief pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees.
Sergio Francisco Romo is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners, and Toronto Blue Jays. A right-hander who served as a closer during his career, his main pitch was his slider.
The Tampa Bay Rays 2011 season was the team's 14th season in Major League Baseball. Despite starting the season 0–6 and trailing the Boston Red Sox by 9 games as late in the season as September 3, the Rays captured the AL Wild Card and made consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in franchise history. However, they lost to the Texas Rangers in four games in the Division Series, the second year in a row they lost to Texas in the first round of the playoffs.
Matthew Cody Moore is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Guardians, and Miami Marlins and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
The 2011 American League Division Series were two best-of-five playoffs comprising the opening round of the Major League Baseball postseason, played to determine the participating teams in the 2011 American League Championship Series. Three divisional winners and a fourth team—a wild card—played in two series. TBS televised all games but the Game 2's of both series in the United States. The Game 2's of both series were aired on TNT due to schedule conflicts with other ALDS games or the NLDS. The regular season finished on September 28, with the ALDS beginning September 30. Game 5 of the Yankees–Tigers series was played on October 6.
Wade Allen Miley is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, and Chicago Cubs.
Ryne Thomas Stanek is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins, and Houston Astros.
Blake Ashton Snell is an American professional baseball pitcher for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays and San Diego Padres.
Ryan Christian Yarbrough is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals. The Seattle Mariners selected Yarbrough in the fourth round of the 2014 MLB draft.
Chad Keith Green is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played MLB for the New York Yankees. He made his MLB debut with the Yankees in 2016 as a starting pitcher, and became a relief pitcher in 2017.
The Tampa Bay Rays 2018 season was the Rays' 21st season of Major League Baseball, and the 11th as the "Rays". The Rays played this season with few starting pitchers. Many games were started by pitchers normally used in relief, referred to as openers. This approach saw the Rays set MLB single season records for most no decisions by starters (91) and most wins by relievers (55). They finished the season with a 90–72 record, their first winning season since 2013; however, for the fifth consecutive year, they failed to make the postseason. This was because the Red Sox had 108 wins for the division title, while the Yankees had 100 wins and the Athletics had 97 wins for the wild card.
Diego Castillo is a Dominican professional baseball pitcher in the Minnesota Twins organization. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners.
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Former Beyond the Box Score managing editor Bryan Grosnick discussed the alternative approach at length in 2013.
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