I'm sure a lot of you in the north are probably saying "thank God it's opening day!" The pictures I've seen of the winter that many of you have experienced makes me pretty sure that sentiment holds for a lot of you.
This is season #45 for the Jays, and I thought of Dave Stieb and wondered how many opening day starts he had. I went and looked up on Baseball Reference just how many times Dave started on Opening Day, and I was surprised to learn it was just 4. The list below shows what game he actually began each season and how the team fared.
1980 5th game against Milwaukee (won)
1981 2nd game against Detroit (lost)
1982 2nd game against Milwaukee (won in extra innings)
1983 Opening Day win against Boston
1984 4th game against California (won)
1985 Opening Day loss against KC
1986 Opening Day loss against Texas
1987 4th game against Boston (won)
1988 4th game against Minnesota (loss)
1989 7th game against NYY (won)
1990 2nd game against Texas (won)
1991 Opening Day loss against Boston
1992 became a spot starter in his last season with the Jays (first time around)
Dave was 1-3 on opening day starts, but you can see that the Jays won 6 other times on his first start of the season.
Hyun Jin Ryu starts for the 2nd straight year on Opening Day and I'm hoping that the Jays young guns put up a big season this year.
Just finishing ahead of either the Yanks or Boston this year would be good as well....
Enjoy the season!!!
Robert
You probably won't have to worry about Boston this year...or do you? ;)
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see what happens with the Sox this year. 1 year flu maybe??
DeleteIt's probably a good thing that he didn't open up more seasons then.
ReplyDeleteI was actually kind of surprised he didn't have more Opening Day assignments, especially in the early 80's when he was their clear ace.
DeleteGo Jays! So happy to see they took down the Yankees. I'll be rooting for them all weekend. As for Stieb... he is my all-time favorite Blue Jay. We went to the same high school... although I was there a decade later.
ReplyDelete