Photo credit: athleticsnation.com

By: Amaury Pi-Gonzalez

On Saturday, the Oakland Athletics against the visiting Cleveland Indians, started a game with Liam Hendriks, as an “opener” for the first time since October 3, 2018 at Yankee Stadium for the one-game Wild Card elimination game, which the Yankees won 7-2. After Hendriks was slated to open the game and pitch only the first inning, he allowed no runs, walked one and struck out one. A’s manager Bob Melvin followed with a parade of pitchers: Aaron Brooks, Yusmeiro Petit, Lou Trivino and Blake Treinen, who was accredited with the A’s 3-2 win over the Indians.

Thirty years ago, there were 622 complete games in MLB. Last season, just a total of 42 and just 13 pitchers threw for 200-plus innings. That was the way pitching has gone, and with just about every team hitting lots of home runs so far this season, with the exceptions of the Marlins and Giants, pitching is so deluded now, that I would not be surprised “openers” are here to stay.

I know it is the wrong sport, but the great Al Davis used to say “just win baby” and the same thing applies in baseball. Use whatever formula works. Soon the National League will adopt the DH rule. It is inevitable, you know it and everybody knows it. So there are some general changes and regulations that MLB will establish, but there are others that just happen and the “opener” is one of those.

Pitching is becoming a commodity as hard to find as diamonds, the hardest mineral to find on earth. Not many years ago, pitching coaches will tell their starters on the rotation “give me six good innings”.  Today, that is for the “opener” give me one good inning — three outs in the first inning and your are out of the game.

I am not the one who likes to predict the future, but I predict one record that will never be broken is that of Cy Young, who pitched 7,356 innings in 22 seasons. Of course, different eras. Back then, the only count was that of the attendance, but no count of pitches thrown. But that was then and it’s something that we will never see again.

Bob Melvin is one of the best managers in the game. In a perfect world, he would have had at least a semi-set rotation and would have never used the “opener”, but it is not easy to win a game in the majors.

After he retired and did TV commentary, I once asked my all-time favorite manager Sparky Anderson: “In your opinion how many games does a manager win during a season using pure strategy?” He told me: “Maybe 10 to 15 games.” Sparky and many others never had to manage “openers” because a pitcher that begins a game, if not abused in the first inning, is expected to go a long way.

The defensive shift, is slowly changing as hitters are adjusting. but you better get used to the “opener”, and if it becomes a common thing, there will also be a stats for openers and their success. Why not? Baseball is filled with changes. Remember there was no RBI recorded until 1920.

So, the tale of the story, you better get use to “openers”, because they could be as valuable as closers.