The Three Worst Opening Day Pitching Performances

Many pitchers consider starting on Opening Day an honor, a privilege, and an opportunity to kick off their respective ball club’s year in style. Most starters capitalize on their chance to shine, while others have flopped in comedic fashion. Since talking about the flops makes me crack up more, we’ll go over the worst Opening Day pitching performances in baseball history.

SP Kyle Lohse

Former St. Louis Cardinals SP Kyle Lohse had a solid career in St. Louis. He owned a 3.90 ERA throughout his five seasons and served as a contributing factor to the Cardinals’ 2011 World Series title. When called upon to toss the first pitches of the Cardinals’ 2015 season, however, he instantly made the birds regret their decision.

Lohse was matched up against SP Kyle Kendrick and the Colorado Rockies in the opener. Given Kendrick’s resume, I would have predicted that he would be the one to give up a million runs. What transpired forced me to rethink what I knew about baseball entirely. Kendrick looked like a great pitcher — he threw seven shutout innings and struck out six while walking none.

On the other hand, Lohse put out one of the most laughable Opening Day performances in recent memory. The Cardinals pitcher only lasted until the fourth inning before being yanked and probably tested to determine if he was pitching that game sober. In less than four innings, Lohse managed to give up two home runs and a total of 10 hits, leading to the Rockies scoring eight runs on Lohse in his short-lived Opening Day start. You would have thought this game was played at Coors Field with that kind of stat line, but not so fast! Lohse was throwing at his home field at Busch Stadium, giving him even less of an excuse for getting banged up in the fashion that he did. After this embarrassing occurrence from the one Kyle and a stellar performance from the other, the moral of the story is you never know what you will get from someone named Kyle.

SP Roberto Hernández

Speaking of never knowing, until the season where SP Roberto Hernandez was the Opening Day starter for the Cleveland Indians, we didn’t know his real name or age! Hernández was known as Fausto Carmona at the time. He claimed to be three years younger than he was, only to be exposed and suspended by MLB later in the 2011 season after fooling the league for five years.

In 2011 Hernández also fooled Cleveland into believing that giving him the Opening Day start was a wise idea. Hernández, like Lohse, was pulled before the end of the fourth inning and still somehow managed to eliminate any chance of his team winning this game. The Chicago White Sox, Cleveland’s opposition, would score a whopping 10 runs on Hernández. Most runs came in the third and the fourth inning as Hernández failed to record an out in the fourth before being benched. The White Sox may not have known Hernández’s actual name or age, but the team did know how to rake off of him.

SP Joe “Bullet” Bush

This one is a throwback, and by throwback I mean your grandparents’ grandparents probably had this guy’s baseball card in their bike spokes. SP Joe “Bullet” Bush will forever be remembered now as the guy that started the highest-scoring Opening Day game ever. In the 1925 season (no, that is not a typo), the St. Louis Browns matched up with the Indians, and the two teams wound up scoring a combined 35 runs. The Browns gave up 21 of those 35 runs in the loss to Cleveland. The crazy part is, Bush gave up only 7 of those 21 runs scored, and two of them were unearned. Lasting only 2.2 innings, Bush let up nine hits and two walks. The Browns gave up 11 unearned runs and committed 10 errors as a team, tying a single-game record for fielding blunders. When a pitcher fails to even last three complete innings and still is not the main culprit for a loss, then that just means your team was a dumpster fire that game.

Rather than appreciating baseball’s gems on this highly regarded MLB holiday, celebrating all of the terrible performances can lead us to love the game on a completely different level.

Cover photo courtesy of David Zalubowski/AP Photo