With Opening Day right around the corner, I wanted to look back at this historic day and see how the Orioles have done historically.
For starters, the Orioles are 43-24 in the season’s first game since comting to Baltimore in 1954. That’s better than both the Yankees and Red Sox in that time period…just sayin’.
The Orioles have played the Yankees then the Red Sox in the last two Opening Day games which obviously is not an easy task. It’s hard to forget the iconic Tommy Milone Opening Day start, with the Orioles as a whole giving up a healthy 13 runs. This onslaught happened at Fenway, and it was a fitting start to that makeshift 2020 season.
The Orioles have had quite a few Opening Day starters. The pitchers with the most Opening Day starts are Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Mike Mussina with six Opening Day starts apiece. In second is Orioles Hall of Famer Dave McNally (five starts) who was a key part of the Orioles’ 1966 championship. In third are three players who are well known around the current Orioles fan community; former ace Chris Tillman, Jeremy Guthrie and Rodrigo Lopez, each with three Opening Day starts to their name.
All in all, the Orioles have been relatively successful on Opening Day, even with their unremarkable history of teams in the recent past. The Orioles are ranked 3rd in Opening Day winning percentage at 58.8% (via David Adler at MLB.com) behind only the Mets and Mariners.
John Means is finally getting the Opening Day start he deserves and I’m excited for this Orioles team to come out for a game that really counts.
Come April 1st, we will finally have consistent Orioles baseball once again.
